Final Design Review - Language issue

Gaston,

Did they mention the language issue during the first review of the credit? I would go to gbci.org click on contact at the bottom and explain the situation. Offer to have the document translated and notarized and I would request that they wave the fee if possible. I don't know if there is a place that specifically states a language requirement for documentation maybe a LEED Interpretation - thoughts? Please keep us posted as to how you resolv this issue....

First, I am assuming you meant final construction review, as the enhanced commissioning would not be reviewed during design submittal?

I agree with Erika. If it was not mentioned during the first review, and then the credit was outright denied, you should contact GBCI about it. If this document was noticed during final review, they should have sent you a mid-revew clarification about it to give you an opportunity to remedy the situation. They should give you a chance then and definitely waive the appeal fee if that is how you are required to proceed. It may not even get that far. Do not accept the review or certification until you reach out to GBCI.

With that said, I do believe that GBCI requires all LEED documentation to be translated into English prior to submission. This includes all of the drawings as well. Projects are being submitted from all over the world in so many languages, it is unreasonable to expect the reviewers to be multi-lingual.

So it sounds like you submitted the Enhanced Commissioning credit during the middle of construction review.... after the initial review response and before you submitted for final. This would mean that it would only get one look by the reviewers and you would not have a chance to correct it. This is why they outright denied it. That stinks! I am sorry.

I hope they can work with you on this, but I am guessing that they might make you stick to protocol, which means you would have to open and pay for an appeal and revise your submission for one more look by a reviewer to earn the credit.

Good luck!

I think they will work with you on this. They should, it is a simple fix - they shouldn't have to infer it from the contract or translate. But they could have also sent a clarification request as well stating that the contract be in English. Also in the final comments they should tell you how to handle the situation. I can see gaps on both sides but a $500 appeal fee for this seems excessive -maybe that is another issue to be addressed completely - let the punishment fit the crime.

As a footnote, in China of course all (legal) documents are written in Chinese. However we always submit in native Chinese language but with annotations in English for the translation in the relevant sections of the contracts, drawings, schematics etc. With the English translation on the side, these documents had never been rejected and we never had to go through the trouble of having them notarised and so on.

With translations, and for all of us working in different language markets what is needed is LEED to just copy the BREEAM policy in translations. All documentation is uploaded in the native language with a cost of approximately $2,500 (for all documentation). How they do it so cheaply? Simple, instead of translating all documents at BRE (which would definitely cost many times of what they are charging), the BREEAM reviewer, in the quality assurance stage, has a translator next to him and asks him questions like, what does he say here, and what does he say there etc. It is one of the "localisation" issues that LEED should copy BREEAM. Mind you, BREEAM has assessors and therefore QA is simpler and only selective. GBCI checks everything. even so, a significantly higher fee for translation services by GBCI will make all those involved in international projects very happy.

Hi Gastion, can i know how do you finally get the point? By offering a translated and notarized version of contract? or just explaining the situation in the email you've written to GBCI.