A practitioner at a NSW firm has been suspended from practice for professional misconduct during an administrative tribunal.

Phillippe Goriaux, a director at Newcastle-based Insite Architecture & Design, was charged forging a development consent and “improperly” recovering fees from clients.

Goriaux was struck of the Architect’s Register and prevented from reapplying for registration for two years under the Architects Act 2003. He was also ordered to pay the legal costs of the applicant, NSW Architects Registration Board.

On 13 April 2005, the Board received from Insite Architecture & Design (Newcastle) Pty Ltd (‘Insite’), an architect corporation, a form nominating Goriaux, who was then a registered architect, under section 27 of the Act. The form bore his signature and Goriaux thereby became the architect responsible for the provision of architectural services by Insite.

Goriaux and Sean Lander were the two directors at Insite when the firm was engaged on a residential project for Stephen and Tanya Dammerer.

The tribunal heard that Lander went to Stephen Dammerer and told him that council had approved a development application that he had lodged with respect to the residential property Insite had been appointed to design.

Between August 2006 and July 2007, Stephen and Tanya Dammerer received tax invoices for professional fees totalling $26,500 from Insite, which they paid.

However, Stephen Dammerer did repeatedly request a copy of the development approval and, in January 2008, Lander sent a photocopy of a document on the council’s letterhead, headed ‘Notice of Determination of a Development Application — Development Consent “Deferred Commencement” No. DA-2006/1045(C)’ (hereafter ‘the Development Consent’). It was dated 11 November 2007 and addressed to Insite. It stated that consent had been given to the development proposed for the property and bore a signature purporting to be that of Ian Arnott, an officer employed by the council as its development planning manager.

Soon after receiving this document, Dammerer sent a copy of it to the council, together with a request for access to the other documents relating to this matter that were in the council’s possession.

However, Arnott responded by saying that they had no record of receiving or determining a development application for the property that the reference number quoted was out of sequence. Arnott also said that the text of the development consent had significant resemblances to that of a comparable document that the council had issued to Insite during 2003 and, while the signature on the consent did resemble his own, he had never signed a deferred commencement consent for the property.

Despite repeated notices, Goriaux did not attend the tribunal.

The court found Goriaux to be responsible for “unsatisfactory professional conduct of a sufficiently serious nature to justify the suspension of an architect or the cancellation of an architect’s registration”. He was ordered to pay the Board’s costs.

Despite repeated notices, Goriaux did not attend the tribunal.

Gemma Battenbough

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