My wife and I contracted with a reputable architectural firm to design a new house for us. The house is expensive, and the building is well over $1 million. Though the firm traditionally does design and build, we only signed for architectural plans. When it became obvious that the cost was excessive through this firm, we obtained other bids. The architect became very upset, threatened me with lawsuits for copyright infringement after getting other bids stating I was not allowed to show the plans to anybody else even though I had already paid over $100,000 for the plans. they refused to release certified plans to meet for permitting, and I was literally forced to sign a non-disclosure, and had to pay an additional 10% fee for all of the optional things they had proposed but we never did or will never do in the future. Those items were just discussions to see if it worked for us. My lawyer says we should just sign a nondisclosure to get on with the build and pay the ransom. I’m still pissed about it. Just wondering what the Building Community thought of this?