Owner's Rep · CEI · Construction Administration · Private Provider

An Engineer on Your Side of the Table

How You Can Hire Us

Hire SOTEK directly as your Private Provider, your Owner’s Representative, or your Engineering Consultant. One role, two, or all three. A licensed Professional Engineer working for you, on whatever you actually need.

Three Roles. Take One, Two, or All Three.

These are separate engagements, and people mix them up constantly. You don’t have to buy a bundle, and you don’t have to know which one you need before you call. Tell us the problem and we’ll tell you which role solves it.

REGULATORY ROLE

Private Provider

A licensed Professional Engineer performs the plan review and building inspections under Florida’s private provider law, as an alternative to waiting in the building department’s queue. Hire us for this when your schedule can’t survive the review queue, or you want inspections handled by an engineer who understands the project rather than whoever is on the route that day.

CONTRACTUAL ROLE

Owner's Representative & CEI

An independent engineer represents your interests against the construction contract. Bidding and award, constructability review, inspection, pay application review, change orders, claims, certification and closeout. Hire us for this when you’re spending real money with a contractor and nobody independent is watching the work, the invoices, or the schedule.

ADVISORY ROLE

Engineering Consultant

A licensed PE on call for whatever your property actually needs. Design and sealed drawings, inspections and assessments, plan review, permitting and regulatory coordination, forensic and insurance support, board advisory. Hire us for this when you need an engineer’s judgment on something specific, whether or not there’s a construction project attached to it.

Any combination, and it can change. Some clients bring us in as Private Provider on one permit and never need anything else. Some hire us as Owner’s Rep for a single roof and keep us on retainer as their consulting engineer afterward. Some start with a question and end up with all three. There’s no package to buy into and nothing bundled that you didn’t ask for.

CLIENTS

Boards, Managers, and Owners

Condominium & Cooperative Associations

Roofing, concrete restoration, pool and deck, electrical rooms, sea walls and marinas, guardrails and hatches. Single buildings and multi-building communities. We’ve run oversight across entire properties, building by building, and stayed through amendments and expansions of scope because the board wanted us there.

Property Managers & LCAMs

You need one technical counterpart who documents everything, attends what needs attending, and doesn’t create work for you. That’s the job we’re built to do.

Commercial & Retail Owners

Renovations and buildouts, post-construction inspection, testing and commissioning support, final certifications, attestations and permit closeout. Including work outside South Florida.

Owners Between Engineers

Sometimes a project is already underway and the current engineer isn’t working out. That call is more common than people admit, and we take it.

How It Works

From Bid to Final Acceptance

Scope & Proposal

We review the project, the documents, and where it stands. You get a proposal with the scope, the assumptions and the exclusions in writing, plus a fee structure that fits the actual risk.

Bid, Award & Contract

Where you want it: bid documents, prequalification, bid leveling, interviews, a written award recommendation, and contract negotiation support before you sign anything.

Preconstruction

Constructability field review with the awarded contractor. Preconstruction conference with the permitting agencies invited. Submittal reviews. Lines of communication and document control established.

Construction

On-site observation, progress meetings, submittal and RFI turnaround, pay application review, contractor ratings, change order and claim handling, materials testing oversight, and residents’ questions answered.

Substantial & Final

Preliminary and final inspections, punch list development, verification that punch items are actually complete, and formal notice of final acceptance.

Certification & Closeout

Certification of construction completion, final documentation package, attestations, as-built review, and the paperwork that closes the permit.

Why Us

Why Boards Choose SOTEK

The engineer is the engineer

You’re not handing your project to a firm and getting a junior inspector. A licensed Professional Engineer is your project engineer.

Our fee rewards your contractor's good work

Full inspection when it’s needed, limited inspection when it’s earned, reassessed monthly. If your contractor performs, you pay us less.

We're independent, and we write it down

Pay applications verified, contractors rated, defective work reported in writing, change orders negotiated. Every proposal states the limits of our authority explicitly.

We answer the residents

Our project engineer is the field representative for public interaction. Your board doesn’t have to be.

We do the whole lifecycle

Bid documents through warranty administration. And when a project turns into a forensic problem or a claim, the engineer who was standing there is still your engineer.

Associations have replaced larger firms with us

Bigger firm, more names on the org chart, nobody on site. Boards call us because they want the direct approach, and they stay because they get it.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we hire you directly, and just for one thing?

Yes. SOTEK can be engaged directly as your Private Provider, your Owner’s Representative and CEI, or your Engineering Consultant, in any combination. You can hire us for a single permit, a single project, a single question, or for all of it on an ongoing basis. Nothing is bundled and nothing requires you to take a service you didn’t ask for.

What's the difference between a Private Provider and an Owner's Representative?

They solve different problems. Private provider is a regulatory role: a licensed engineer performs plan review and building inspections under Florida’s private provider law, which is an alternative to waiting on the building department. Owner’s representative and CEI is a contractual role: an independent engineer represents your interests against the construction contract, reviewing the work, the pay applications and the change orders. We do both, and many projects want both.

Our association already has an engineer of record. Why do we need you?

The engineer of record designed the project. CEI verifies it gets built the way it was designed. Those are different jobs, and on most projects they should be, because it’s hard to independently review your own drawings. We coordinate directly with the engineer of record on clarifications and design interpretations.

Can you take over a project that's already under construction?

Yes. It happens more than people expect. We’ll review where things stand, what’s been paid, what’s been documented, and what’s actually been built, and give you a straight assessment before you commit.

How is your fee structured?

For oversight work, on a weekly or monthly basis through the life of the project, including preconstruction and closeout, with a not-to-exceed. There are two levels, full inspection and limited inspection, and which one applies is reassessed monthly based on how your contractor is performing. Additional engineering outside the oversight scope is on-call and hourly, authorized by you in writing first.

Do you mark up permit fees, testing or subconsultants?

No. Reimbursable expenses are billed at cost with no markup, subject to your written authorization.

Will you attend our board meetings?

Yes, in person or virtually. Unit owner meetings, town halls and special assessment meetings too. Explaining the engineering to the people paying for it is part of the job.

Who talks to the residents?

Our project engineer. When owners have questions or concerns about the project, we’re the ones on site to answer them.

Do you review the contractor's payment applications?

Every one, before you pay it. We verify the quantities represented, recommend payment as requested or as modified, and issue a contractor rating with each application.

Will you tell us if the contractor isn't performing?

In writing, whenever we believe the work is unsatisfactory, faulty, defective, non-conforming, or has been damaged before final payment. That’s what you’re hiring us for.

Do you work outside Miami-Dade and Broward?

Yes. Our core market is South Florida, but we’ve taken private provider and closeout work elsewhere in the state when a client asked us to.

Before You Sign That Contract, Call Us.

The cheapest time to fix a construction problem is before it’s in the contract. The second cheapest is while somebody independent is watching. Tell us where your project is and we’ll tell you honestly what it needs, and which role you actually need us in.

Call Christopher directly · (786) 597-7894