TITLE: Nevada Real Estate Services, Inc., B-293105, February 3, 2004
BNUMBER: B-293105
DATE: February 3, 2004
**********************************************************************
Nevada Real Estate Services, Inc., B-293105, February 3, 2004
Decision
Matter of: Nevada Real Estate Services, Inc.
File: B-293105
Date: February 3, 2004
Michael P. Krein for the protester.
Carolyn P. Fiume, Esq., Department of Housing and Urban Development, for
the agency.
Jacqueline Maeder, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Agency properly rejected protester*s offer where, although protester
claims it submitted a complete business proposal along with its technical
proposal, record shows that submitted business proposal omitted
substantial required information.
DECISION
Nevada Real Estate Services, Inc. (NRE) protests the rejection of its
proposals under request for proposals (RFP) No. R-OPC-22505, issued by the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for management and
marketing (M&M) services for single-family properties. HUD rejected NRE*s
proposals for failure to include complete business proposals.
We deny the protest.
The RFP, issued on August 6, 2003, contemplated the award of 24
fixed-price, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts for M&M
services in 24 geographic areas, for a base year, with four 1-year
options. Offerors could submit proposals for one or more geographic
areas. Each geographic area falls under one of four regional Home
Ownership Centers (HOC) based in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, and Santa
Ana, California. The Denver HOC is divided into six areas and the Santa
Ana HOC is divided into five. NRE*s protest concerns Area 1 of the Denver
HOC, and Area 4 of the Santa Ana HOC.
Proposals were to include two separate volumes--a technical/management
proposal describing the firm*s organization and management, and a business
proposal that included Standard Form 33 (the solicitation cover sheet),
completed representations and certifications, price evaluation worksheets
and contract line item number (CLIN) price sheets, and past performance
evaluation surveys. Award would be on a *best value* basis, with
technical factors being significantly more important than price. Offerors
were required to submit a hard copy and a CD-ROM copy of their proposals,
and also were to upload an electronic copy to a specified website, by
4 p.m. on September 5. Proposals received after that time would be
considered late and not be evaluated. If any of the three required
submissions were untimely, the hard copy of the proposal would take
precedence.[1]
On September 5, NRE submitted proposals for two areas--Denver Area 1 and
Santa Ana Area 4--through its agent, The Preferred Company. The Preferred
Company hand‑delivered to the agency, at 3:50 p.m., four boxes
containing the hard copies and CD-ROM copies of NRE*s proposals (as well
as the proposals of two other offerors), and uploaded an electronic copy
of NRE*s Santa Ana proposal at 3:19 p.m., and its Denver proposal at 3:20
p.m. AR, Tab 1, Contracting Officer*s Statement, at 3.
On September 8, two contract specialists unpacked the hard copies of NRE*s
proposals, and determined that neither contained a business proposal. A
third contract specialist confirmed these determinations on September 22.
Thereafter, on October 8, a contract specialist discovered that the
uploaded versions of NRE*s business volumes did not include any prices on
the CLIN price sheets, or any other pricing information. Id. at 4. The
contracting officer again reviewed the hard copies and CD-ROM versions of
NRE*s proposals, and confirmed that these versions also did not contain
complete business proposals, and that neither version included any pricing
information. Id. By letter dated October 16, HUD notified NRE that its
proposals did not contain the required business proposal in the hard copy,
CD-ROM, or uploaded versions, and that its proposals therefore would not
be considered for award. Id.
The protester maintains that it did submit business proposals by the
September 5 deadline, pointing to a signed receipt from HUD as evidence
that its offer was acceptable. NRE further contends that references in
the uploaded copies of its proposals--which HUD provided to our Office as
part of its report--show that those copies are of a proposal belonging to
a company named Lawyer*s Trust. Comments at 2. NRE has submitted to our
Office *complete copies of [its] proposals both in hard copy and in CD-ROM
format* that it alleges *were originally submitted to HUD in a timely
manner . . . ,* Id. at 1, and asserts that HUD should allow it *to
re-enter the competition and be considered for award . . . .* Id. at 3.
The protest is without merit. First, since NRE submitted its proposals
through an intermediary, it is not in a position to represent that it
furnished the agency with a complete copy of its proposals.[2] NRE has
not provided a statement from The Preferred Company explaining its
position regarding the contents of the delivered proposals. In any case,
our review is concerned with what the agency received by the closing time,
not what allegedly was submitted. The agency has provided statements from
two contract specialists attesting that they unpacked NRE*s hard copy
proposals from boxes and found that the proposals included no business
volumes, including no section K certifications and representations, no
price worksheets, and no CLIN price sheets. At the time the contract
specialists unpacked the proposals, each noted the missing volume on the
HUD log sheet. AR, Tabs 3 and 4, Contract Specialists* Statements, at 2.
The agency also submitted a statement from another contract specialist
attesting that she, too, examined NRE*s hard copy proposals and found no
business volumes and also that, while NRE*s uploaded electronic proposals
had an icon for a business volume, when opened, the volume did not include
completed CLIN price sheets or completed price evaluation worksheets, or
any other pricing information. AR, Tab 2, Contract Specialist*s
Statement, at 3-4.
We have examined the original NRE hard copy, CD-ROM, and uploaded versions
of the proposals furnished by the agency; our review confirms that the
proposals were incomplete. Specifically, NRE*s hard copy versions
contained no business proposals at all, and while its uploaded and CD-ROM
versions included some relevant pages of the business
proposals--including, for example, section K, the CLIN pricing sheet, and
past performance surveys--none of these documents was completed; that is,
none of the blank spaces are completed in section K, and no prices are
provided on either the evaluation worksheets or the CLIN price sheets.
For example, for CLIN 0001, property management fee, the uploaded proposal
text reads, *Nevada Real Estate Services proposes a fixed fee of $ per
HUD-owned property for a Property Management fee.* AR, Tab 14, NRE*s
Uploaded Proposal for Denver Area 1, at 2-2. Additionally, no past
performance reference information--including, for example, the reference*s
name, the contract number, start and completion date, or contract
value--is provided on the past performance surveys.
The agency*s uploaded version of the Denver Area 1 technical volume does
begin, as NRE asserts, with pages that reference another company, Lawyer*s
Trust. However, there are specific references to NRE in several sections
in that version. For example, the uploaded version includes five
3‑page past performance surveys. Each one references *Lawyer*s
Trust Title* as the name of the offeror on the first page of the survey,
yet provides a Rating Guidelines Chart on page 3 that repeatedly
references NRE. It is not clear how the uploaded version came to include
what appear to be portions of another firm*s proposal (although, as noted
above, NRE*s proposal was submitted by an intermediary that also submitted
proposals for other offerors, which may have led to the mixup). However,
we think it is clear that the uploaded version--as with the hard copy and
CD-ROM versions--did not include NRE*s pricing and other information
required by the RFP.
The protester suggests that the agency must have lost or misplaced its
proposal. However, this speculation is belied by the fact that the agency
received versions of NRE*s proposals that were not only missing pages (or,
in the case of the hard copies, the entire business proposal), but which
also included pages that specifically referenced NRE and were missing
pricing and other information; the agency could not have lost or misplaced
the pricing information that was omitted from the pricing sheets included
with the proposals. Thus, we conclude that all versions of the two
proposals failed to include complete business proposals with pricing and
other material information. The agency therefore reasonably rejected the
proposals. In this regard, rejection of a proposal is proper where the
initial proposal is so deficient that, in essence, no meaningful proposal
was submitted; to allow the omissions to be cured after the time set for
receipt of initial proposals would be inconsistent with the clause
governing late proposals. Marine Hydraulics Int*l, Inc., B-240034, Oct.
17, 1990, 90-2 CPD P: 308 at 2.
The protest is denied.
Anthony H. Gamboa
General Counsel
------------------------
[1] The agency reports that, as it began the evaluation process, it
determined that, while many offerors submitted timely, complete proposals
in one format, they did not submit timely, complete proposals in all three
required formats. Therefore, the agency determined to accept a proposal
if at least one format of the proposal was complete and timely; a late
submission in another format would be waived as a minor informality.
[2] The protester*s reliance on the signed receipt--which it argues shows
that the agency acknowledged receipt of complete proposals--is similarly
misplaced. The agency explains that the receipt was issued only to
acknowledge receipt of the proposal package, not to indicate that the
proposals received were complete. AR, Tab 1, Contracting Officer*s
Statement, at 3. The government has no obligation to advise offerors of
whether their proposals have arrived, and its failure to do so, or to
provide accurate information about whether a proposal is complete as
received, does not provide grounds for requiring an agency to consider a
late proposal. Selrico Servs., Inc., B‑259709.2, May 1, 1995, 95-1
CPD P: 224 at 2; see The Stauback Co., B‑276486, May 19, 1997, 97-1
CPD P: 190 at 4.