Member Article

With the aim of breathing a bit of fresh air into the Slovenian construction legislation, three new laws have been adopted recently and will be applied with effect from 1 July 2018. The current Construction Act will be replaced with both the new Building Act and the Architectural and Civil Engineering Activities Act, while the current Spatial Management Act will also be subject to certain amendments.

The Slovenian construction legislation went through several major changes due to its complicated and unclear nature. The previous law required broad project documentation, meaning very high expenses and long procedures for obtaining building permits. The new Building Act thus simplifies the procedure and brings many novelties, especially for investors to the procedure itself, with pre-decision being one of the most important ones. Apart from that, the Building Act does not require building permits for simple and temporary buildings. They also become unnecessary for building maintenance and demolition purposes, in which case only the demolition of the building should be registered with the administrative unit 8 days before the demolition starts. The Building Act further broadens the definition of "building" to the physical, construction and similar structural changes.

Apart from the above, the Building Act brings the procedure of obtaining building permits and the procedure of obtaining environmental approval – where the latter is a requirement for the building permit, into the so called "integral procedure". According to the Building Act, only one body based on one document shall decide on both the building permit and environmental approval, while a special role is assigned to the general public, which will have an opportunity to review the documentation and submit comments and suggestions.

One of the main novelties that the Building Act brings, in relation to the renewed procedure on obtaining the building permit, is the reduction of documentation that has to be submitted in order to obtain the building permit. The requested documentation is still to be defined in further regulations that will be adopted after the Building Act is applied. In order to simplify the procedure further, administrative units will have a more important role - being obliged to provide investors with non-binding information and advice.

Investors will now have the possibility of requesting the administrative unit to issue a pre-decision in relation to the compliance of the project with the spatial planning documents and other construction law provisions. Investors will still be obliged to submit detailed project documentation alongside with the request for a pre-decision. However, investors will not be obliged to prove the ownership right or the right to build on land for the issuance of the pre-decision. The pre-decision will provide legal security and investment predictability for the investor, as the administrative unit will issue the opinion on the admissibility of construction even before the administrative unit issues the building permit and the investor obtains ownership over the land. The pre-decision will also be binding for the administrative unit when issuing the building permit itself, and will thus prevent spatial planning documents to be subsequently amended.

The Building Act will also simplify the procedure of obtaining the building permit by amending the procedures on obtaining consent from the competent authorities. The Building Act thus abolishes consent (Slovene soglasja) and instead implements opinions(Slovene mnenje)by the authorities competent for granting the opinions (Slovene mnenjedajalec). In cases when the opinion authority will not issue the opinion, or the opinions are inconsistent or exceed the legal grounds, the administrative unit will be entitled to organise an oral hearing in order to harmonise opinions, and even decide on the opinion itself. If the opinion authorities will not issue an opinion during the given deadline, its' opinion may be substituted with the opinion of the authority supervising the opinion authority, or by the opinion of an expert.

The Building Act further implements broader conditions for the use of the short fact-finding procedure, which will be carried out for all buildings, if the project documentation is submitted together with the building designer's or project manager's confirmation on the fulfilment of the essential conditions, positive opinions of the opinion authorities, notices by third-party participants, and the confirmation on thepayment of the communal fee or the compensation for degradation and usurpation.

Also, certain changes will be implemented concerning the registration for the commencement of the construction. Instead of registration with the Labour inspectorate 15 days in advance, the investor will be obliged to register the commencement of construction with the administrative unit 8 days before the construction begins. The registration shall be submitted electronically or by form – which is still to be prescribed by theMinistry of the environment and spatial planning.

The Building Act also amends the legalisation procedures for existing buildings, aiming to solve past problems. It will be thus possible to legalise all buildings with deviations, which will be acceptable under the Building Act, as well as those buildings, which comply either with the Building Act or with the act which was in use during the construction time. The latter can be carried out 5 years after the Building Act enters into force. Further, all buildings, built prior to 1 January 1998, whose purpose and scale remained the same, can become legal. In those cases, permissions for long-existing buildings will be issued.

Apart from the above, all procedures will be simplified by submitting the requests and documents via the electronic spatial information system, providing for the simple obtaining of permissions and faster communication between the authorities and parties in the procedures. The electronic system is planned to be implemented by 2021.

The information in this document does not constitute legal advice on any particular matter and is provided for general informational purposes only.