Legal Services to Real Estate Developers
Due to the existence of a very long list of legal risks for the development activity, starting from the purchase of investment land, and on warranty claims, this business sector should be under the widest possible care of lawyers.
We focus on the following stages of the developer process:
- legal audit of the property
- purchase and sale of the property
- contract with an architect for design works
- utility contracts
- construction works contracts
- the course of the construction process
- construction correspondence
- claim management
- developer’s agreements
- claims for defects in buildings
The first key move in the developer’s activity is to acquire the real estate for construction purposes. Legal due diligence (LDD) is the basis for the developer’s decision to purchase the property. Polish law imposes numerous legal requirements on property owners, such as protection of buildings in the area of conservation protection, register of monuments, rules of property development included in the LSDP (local spatial development plan), conditions of property development, access connection of the property to the public road, etc. which result in restrictions in terms of the possibility of development of the property. Communes, religious associations and reprivatisation claims are areas where legal assessment is necessary before a decision regarding the purchase of real property is made. Recently, claims of FWP Sp. z o.o. (formerly the Employee Holiday Fund) have also been lodged, to which the Act itself granted the ownership of more than 400 holiday facilities. Then we negotiate the terms of the agreement and complete the transaction at a notary’s office.
Real estate development agreements drawn up by our firm guarantee the developer that the sale of apartments takes place in accordance with the Polish Development Act. We check the register of abusive clauses on an ongoing basis in order to avoid the inclusion of prohibited clauses in our agreements.
A construction contract is usually a contract concluded with a general contractor. Our contracts result from over 100 construction processes, each was worth more than PLN 20 million. Our experiences and construction conflicts from these construction processes have been reflected in safe standard contractual clauses.
Handling construction communication by or with the support of a professional lawyer is essential to the avoid considerable construction disputes. Unfortunate expressions or statements contained in construction correspondence often give rise to claim management on the part of the contractor or allow for increasing the amount of lump-sum remuneration for the performed construction works.
One of the significant factors in the investment process is obtaining a building permit and its defence against complaints from the owners of properties located in the impact zone of the investment. This is a serious concern for developers and investors. Our lawyers effectively defend the building permit decision before administrative bodies: voivodes and administrative court.