Attorney-at-law Siret Siilbek´s article in legal blog about the good practice in construction

Law Firm ALTERNA´s partner and attorney-at-law Siret Siilbek wrote about the good practice in construction in her current legal blog post. 

Siret wrote that there has been a lot of discussion about the best practice in construction law and it must be followed according to the Building Code (BC) valid and also according to BC that was valid before July 01 2015. According to the valid BC section 7, the building must be engineered, constructed and kept in order according to the good practice. The good practice must be followed also in other activities regulated by the act.

According to BC the best practice is therefore best construction, engineering and as well in order keeping practice, not only constructing practice narrowly used in the speech.

The best practice is a widely defined and over time varying set of principles and values. According to it, also norms, that do not derive directly from laws, but are in use and have been developed in values of a field, should be guided.

Siret explained that The Council of Construction Rules has written down the good practice in construction in 09th of September 1994. Although, the document has no legal force, it can be considered to be a part of expression of the good practice in construction. Viewpoints described in that cover generally accepted values, such as:

·         The buildings should be engineered, built, changed and kept in order the way that they would be in high quality and environmentally suitable in architectural way and in realization;

·         That they would not create danger to people, assets and environment;

·         That their quality will last during the whole planned lifetime;

·         However, the good practice in construction is not limited only with the standpoints described in named. The concept of the good practice in construction is much wider for today and it has been frequently in different ways defined by the court practice as well.

On behalf of court practice, Siret noted that the courts have described the best practice according to the circumstances of different disputes. For instance, Supreme Court has found that part of the good practice are safety requirements that derive from standards that are not compulsory in Estonia. Although, the standards themselves are recommended, safety requirements derived from them cannot be considered recommended.

As well, Supreme Court has found that the good practice in construction could be defined also with such construction requirements that are not derived from standards, but from viewpoints publicized in scientific literary, rules of professional organisations or derived from laws of nature.

According to the standpoints of Supreme Court a part of the best practice in construction is that the building would match with surrounding environment. In disputes over construction quality, also Finnish quality norms have been considered to be the good practice in construction.

In addition to that, a part of the good practice in construction has been considered also obligation of co-operation between contractors: constructors co-acting on the same building site should concert construction standards and assure compatibility of standards.

Consequently, Siret wrote that therefore, the good practice in construction is extremely wide and expresses reasonable and diligent observing of skills and knowledge developed in it. Also the good practice has been observed when there has been diligent fulfilment of obligations, acting in good faith and observing the principle of reasonableness.

 

The blog’s post is available here: http://addenda.ee/vandeadvokaat-siret-siilbek-hea-tava

For further information, related to the article, please contact Siret by e-mail siret@alternalaw.ee or by phone +372 680 6850.

 

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