Building Information Modeling and Potential Legal Issues: Fid-Bau Portal

Building Information Modeling and Potential Legal Issues

Arensman, Douglas B. / Ozbek, Mehmet E.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an emerging concept within the construction industry. With the increase in the utilization of BIM, it has become clear that there is some legal uncertainty in dealing with this technology. While the technology is rapidly growing in sophistication, these legal uncertainties may be acting as obstacles on BIM's wider adoption. It is important that the potential users of BIM become aware of the potential legal issues and how these issues are evolving within the companies that have been using BIM to make better informed decisions. Within this context, this article's purpose is to: (i) provide an overview of the potential legal issues associated with BIM and (ii) present the perspectives of companies (that have been involved in projects using BIM) on those potential legal issues and their experiences in dealing with those issues as gathered through semi-structured interviews. The interviews included ten professionals representing different entities in the construction industry that are primarily affected by the BIM-related potential legal issues, architects, owners, and contractors. The potential legal issues that were investigated are model ownership, right to rely, shifting of risk, standard of care, and BIM compensation.