Completed ARE. Do I need to maintain my NCARB record?
Hello,
I just recently passed all my exams, fulfilled all my AXP hours, and completed the education requirement (yay me!). I'm getting licensed in California so I still have the CSE to take, but I was wondering what the purpose was for maintaining an NCARB record after fulfilling all these requirements? The cost of renewal goes up when your licensed, and I don't understand what I get from renewing. Is this something that I'll need to maintain my entire career?
Thanks for the help,
Brent
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Hi Brent,
It's my understanding that the the main benefit is the ability to easily gain reciprocity to other states. I'm in a similar situation where I just took my last ARE exam (hopefully, just waiting on my score report), and fulfilled all AXP and education requirements long ago. My initial registration will be in Virginia, but with the NCARB record I could also get licensed in DC and/or MD relatively easily thru NCARB, which is fairly common the Northern VA market where I'm working.
You may not have any intentions of working in or working on a project in another state now, but maintaining your NCARB record would make that process easier should the need arise. Otherwise trying to re-activate an NCARB record later would not only require a large amount of paperwork, but also would require paying for all missing yearly fees (up to 1,210 starting 7/1/2022) plus a $275 fee (again starting 7/1/22) assuming I am reading the fee's page correctly. https://www.ncarb.org/fees
Additionally, the firm you are working for may reimburse you the cost of maintaining your NCARB record. I know the firm I work for will reimburse the cost of exam fee's and license renewals. I'm not certain if they will reimburse the NCARB record fee but that's something you may want to check into.
- Joe
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Hi Joe,
Thanks for the response. This is very helpful.
Now for my complaint to NCARB! This is bogus! You make licensed Architects pay more money to not delete their record? I have to maintain an account because I might want to get licensed in another state someday? I get the transmittal fee if I choose to get licensed in another state, but maintaining an active record is useless for anyone not working towards licensure. You are literally providing no service and charging for one. This is unethical. A firm shouldn't even have to pay for this.
I just wanted to voice this.
-Brent
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Hi Brent and Joseph,
We want to provide some additional information to you on the NCARB Certificate. Similar to AIA, USGBC, or other professional organizations, the NCARB Certificate ("NCARB” credential in your title, which demonstrates you’ve met national standards for licensure) is a professional credential. Although it isn't a requirement to maintain a license to practice architecture, it does help you expand your professional reach.
Having an NCARB Certificate gives you the flexibility to apply for reciprocal licensure in all 55 U.S. jurisdictions. The Certificate can also be used to support registration in Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. In some jurisdictions, Certificate holders are able to interview for new work prior to acquiring a license in that jurisdiction.
NCARB Certificate holders also have access to NCARB’s free continuing education courses as part of our Continuum Education Program, a collection of online self-study materials that help professionals maintain and expand their competence.
Again, you are not required to maintain a record with NCARB following initial licensure, however, there are many benefits of doing so, specifically if you apply for the NCARB Certificate. If you decide not to keep your record active, NCARB will continue to store all of your information on our secure servers including AXP, ARE, and educational transcripts. This allows you to reactive your record and easily apply for the NCARB Certificate at any time.
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Hi NCARB,
If I understand correctly, maintaining an NCARB record will allow me to easily apply for licensure in all 55 US jurisdictions, correct? So the benefit of the certificate is the continuing education courses and ability to easily apply for licensure in the countries you listed? And I assume there is also a fee to get this certificate? This doesn’t bother me because you are providing a service.Again what I think is unfair here is charging architects for past years their NCARB record lapsed if they decide to apply for a license in another US jurisdiction. You aren’t providing any service if our accounts lapse, yet you charge for one when you make us back pay the years our accounts were inactive. That is unethical.
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I agree with Brent here. I will be charged with a transmittal fee which is already quite expensive if I want to register in another state, yet before the transmittal I have to pay for the lapse annual fee which is 1,210 first, this is quite a burden to an already stressed career in my opinion. If there is one thing NCARB can do to help the Architect profession is to make this record fee more reasonable.
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This is like a subscription fee where I may or may not need to use these services, but if I unsubscribe and then DO need to use the services I am punished just enough financially that my psyche says “well, just in case.” It seems calculated and gross and I have yet to see any benefits from my NCARB membership post-licensure. There are many other avenues to CE credits, and the NCARB webinars are let’s just say not a first draft pick. Please tell me why I am paying you this money.
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Elizabeth: for what it’s worth, anytime a large project in a different jurisdiction has required anything special administratively or legally for my firm to do the work, the associated expenses have always been covered by the client. Most often this relates to insurance, but licensure fees would be similar. Obviously these jobs have to be big enough for you and the client to go to the trouble, but knowing this might make you more comfortable letting your ncarb record expire and having a client pay the fee to reinstate it should it be necessary later. It does make you less competitive when bidding (and for small jobs, you’re really just out of luck), but if the job is big enough and if it’s the right fit, in my experience clients just view it as part of the cost of doing business, like they would any other permit. In my view, the different state requirements related to licensure are much more annoying and burdensome. I can get a client to pay a fee, I can’t get a client to take a supplemental exam. ALL of this (including licensure) make it harder to do business and make our industry less competitive.
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This isn’t just about the money. It’s about the ethics of what NCARB is doing by charging a very substantial fee and providing no service to warrant that fee. They are board that preaches the importance of ethics. Did they even read the chapter on ethics in the AIA Handbook of Professional Practice? Do they know the concepts of basic contracts? There is no “consideration” aka “passing of value between two parties”. It’s a bogus fee and passing it off to a client is also unethical.
In my opinion, if you are probably never going to utilize this service, it's better to just set this money aside and invest it yourself instead of putting it in their pocket. After so many years you will eventually over-pay past the $1,210 "back-pay" they charge. Who knows, maybe one day they will realize it is very unethical to charge a fee and provide no service. (Gotta stay optimistic)
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Brent: As a student there is very little reason to me holding a record for licensure at this point. I don't understand the reason the fee is even necessary if I have no hours in the record system at all. Yet, two years have passed, and I have a $100 fee and a $100 yearly payment. It's just an extra $100 but that money could have easily gone to my student loans. It is definitely unethical and something I should have been made clearly aware of.
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