How do I check that an engineer is a real, practising PE?
Use the Professional Engineers Board's 'Find a Professional Engineer' directories. Search the Directory of Professional Engineers with Practising Certificates by name and confirm the branch (for structural works, civil engineering). Check the List of Suspended and Recently Deregistered PEs as well. If you are contracting with a company, confirm it appears in the Directory of Licensed Corporations and Partnerships. Practising certificates run to 31 December each year, so re-check for multi-year projects.
From the RRD Field Guide, checked against the sources cited in PE Endorsement in Singapore: What It Legally Means and Why Engineer Independence Matters. General information, not advice for your project.
The fuller picture
A PE endorsement is a statutory signature: only a Professional Engineer registered with the PEB and holding a practising certificate in force may sign plans or certificates that the law requires a PE to sign, and documents signed otherwise are invalid. The endorsing PE owes duties to the client, the regulator and the public, which is why owners are better served appointing and paying the engineer directly.
More questions on this topic
- What does it mean when drawings are 'PE-endorsed'?
- Is it illegal for a contractor to arrange the PE for my works?
- What is the difference between a PE and a Qualified Person (QP)?
- Can the same PE design and supervise my works?
- Can a PE give a contractor a commission for referring work?
- Who does the PE owe duties to if the contractor pays the fee?
- What happens if my QP stops acting halfway through the works?