New laws will affect construction and bring digitalisation

The Spatial Planning Act

The explanatory memorandum to the Spatial Planning Act states that its aim is, among other things, to professionalise public administration, reduce the administrative burden, and electronise and digitalise the data that serve as inputs relating to spatial planning and construction.

Abolition of the current building authorities

The Spatial Planning Act envisages the creation of a new Office for Spatial Planning and Construction of the Slovak Republic. This will be a central government authority with nationwide competence for spatial planning, construction and expropriation. The Office for Spatial Planning and Construction of the Slovak Republic will oversee regional offices, each with a defined territorial district of competence. There will be 8 regional offices in total, namely the regional offices seated in Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, Košice, Nitra, Prešov, Trenčín, Trnava and Žilina.

Once the Office for Spatial Planning and Construction of the Slovak Republic is established, first-instance building proceedings will no longer be conducted by municipal building authorities, but by the regional branches of the Office for Spatial Planning and Construction of the Slovak Republic.

Professionally qualified persons and the micro-region spatial plan

Further changes that the Spatial Planning Act will bring concern professionally qualified persons who arrange the procurement of spatial planning materials and spatial planning documentation. Professionally qualified persons will have to be an employee, a person in another employment relationship, or a person in a commercial-law relationship with the spatial planning authority.

A new type of spatial planning documentation will also be created. This will be the micro-region spatial plan, which will take into account the specific development needs of particular regions of the Slovak Republic. The explanatory memorandum gives, as an example, the territory of the High Tatras or the Žitný ostrov.

The Construction Act

The aim of this act should be to reduce the administrative burden of construction-related activities and to simplify construction permitting, above all by electronising processes and digitalising the data associated with spatial planning and construction. This is an act that, in relation to the other acts governing the field of construction, will be a lex specialis[1].

Service of documents

Given that one of the aims of the Construction Act is also to electronise processes, the service of documents will take place in accordance with Act No. 305/2013 Coll. on the electronic form of the exercise of the competence of public authorities and on the amendment of certain acts (the e-Government Act), as amended. Put simply, service under the Construction Act will take place through communication via electronic mailboxes used for electronic communication with public authorities.

The designer

The original Building Act envisaged that the designer also had certain rights and obligations, as well as liability, within the building proceedings. On the other hand, the person generally responsible for all activity connected with the construction works was the builder.

The Construction Act, however, strengthens the position of the designer in a certain way. The designer will be responsible for preparing all stages of the project documentation. Where the designer does not have the qualification to prepare a particular part of the project documentation, they must find a designer with the requisite qualification.

The definition of a general designer is also introduced. The general designer will be the designer who ensures the coordination of several designers, or (rather) also of other specialists, in the preparation of the project documentation.

Notification of a structure

The Construction Act has also changed the notification of structures. Compared with the legal regime found in the Building Act, the definition of structures subject to notification has been amended.

The notification, however, will apply only to minor structures or minor construction works, the removal of minor structures, and the removal of an unpermitted information structure by a person other than the owner of that structure. The builder makes the notification by completing an electronic form. The building authority will, without undue delay, deliver to the builder's electronic mailbox a confirmation of the notification of a minor structure. The day the confirmation of the notification of a minor structure is delivered is deemed to be the day of notification.

So-called illegal structures

The Construction Act introduces a definition of so-called unpermitted construction works. These are construction works carried out without notification or contrary to the confirmation of notification, without a decision permitting the structure or contrary to it, or without verification of the project of the structure or contrary to the verified project of the structure.

The aim is for the competent building authority to be able to detect, already at the time the structure is being built, that a so-called illegal structure is arising. This gives the building authority the ability to respond already while the illegal structure is being built.

Indeed, the Construction Act no longer envisages the possibility of subsequently legalising an illegal structure that has already been built, since the building authority will no longer issue the builder an additional building permit (under the Building Act this was the procedure for the additional permitting of a structure within the meaning of § 88a).

The Administrative Fees Act

In light of the above, it is clear that the entire building proceedings will undergo changes. The changes should, however, also affect the fees charged for individual acts within the building proceedings. The individual fees and their amounts will be governed by Act No. 145/1995 Coll. on administrative fees, as amended (hereinafter the Administrative Fees Act). The National Council of the Slovak Republic has not yet approved an amendment to the Administrative Fees Act.

The explanatory memorandum to the Construction Act, however, states that a new type of fee should be introduced that will apply to all types of structures. Its amount will be set at a maximum of 1.25% of the value of the work. The maximum amount of the fee will also be capped by the maximum value from which the fee is calculated. This will be the sum of 25 million euros.

The explanatory memorandum also provisionally sets out the fee rates for individual types of structures (for flats, from 5.00 EUR to 9.00 EUR/m²). For the exact fee amounts, however, it will be necessary to wait for the wording of the amendment to the Administrative Fees Act.

The Construction Act and the Spatial Planning Act will most certainly affect a large number of natural persons as well as legal persons. At present, however, it cannot be predicted whether both acts will meet their objectives; whether the duration of proceedings will genuinely be shortened will be shown only by practice itself.

Author: JUDr. Ondrej Steiniger 

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[1] Lex specialis derogat legi generali (in English, the more specific law derogates from the more general law) is a legal principle originating in Roman law, meaning that where there is a conflict between the provisions of two legal rules, the more specific rule prevails over the more general one. This rule applies only where the two legal rules are of equal legal force. Source: https://sk.wikipedia.org