On 31 July this year, the website of the Ministry of Investment and Development (MIiR) published a communiqué concerning changes in the construction law.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, an important change improving the safety of buildings concerns old – at least 20-year-old – building arbitrariness. It will be easier to legalise them so that they can be integrated into the security control system. The condition for using the simplified, free of charge procedure will be the presentation of a technical expertise confirming the possibility of safe use of the facility and an as-built geodetic inventory.
The draft Act provides for the introduction of a five-year deadline for the annulment of the building permit decision and the occupancy permit decision. Until now, it has been the case that a building permit could be annulled many years after the building had been constructed and used. This led to legal uncertainty. The new solutions will make it impossible to challenge the decision 5 years after it has been served or announced.
The amendment will include further exemptions from the obligation to obtain a building permit, inter alia, for gas installations carried out inside and outside the building in use, or house terraces. For example, water reclamation facilities will be exempt from the notification requirement.