One of the most pressing issues concerning construction of homes and houses in Poland is the handover of all the construction documentation by the developer to the home owner or property manager. The requirement to provide the documentation arises from art. 60 of the Polish Construction Law. The Developer should transfer those documents when the building has been commissioned.
The developers more than often tend not to provide such documentation or to provide it only partially. Not uncommonly the construction companies are creating a confirmation of transfer of the documents to property management companies, which are subsidiaries of those construction companies. Within such transfer confirmation it is quite often claimed that complete documentation has been issued and transferred to a 3rd party, therefore the construction company shall not be held liable for any deficiency or error in the documentation.
Polish civil law has some solutions to this problem. The most efficient way is to sue the developer in order to force him to convey the missing documents. For quite some time there were no uniform judicial decisions regarding this matter in Polish courts. Our own approach to that matter however allowed us to confirm, that sueing the developer is the way to force the construction company to provide full and exact construction documentation, which encompasses the technical and formal details of a particular real estate. During cases led under the numbers I C 528/14 and XXVII Ca 3421/16 the plaintiff convinced both Courts, that the demanded documentation exists and that it has not been handed over to the authorised entity in due time.
When it comes to the scope of the documentation which should have been handed over, this issue has been regulated in polish Construction law. The documentation should include, but is not limited to the site log and construction design.
Obtaining necessary construction documentation in due time is crucial. Lack of such documentation might become a problem for the owners or managers of properties. Under polish Construction law the property owner or property manager is obligated to have all the necessary construction documentation. Lack of such documents might be prosecuted and the perpetrator of this offence might be fined.