How long does it take to obtain a building permit in the Czech Republic? Not years, but months, shows survey by ČKAIT

"Almost half of the persons answered that the duration of most building permit procedures in the Czech Republic, including related engineering activities, is usually 6 months to a year. In practically all categories we encountered relatively more complex constructions permitted within a few days and relatively simple constructions with very problematic and long permitting procedures," summarizes Robert Špalek, the chairman of ČKAIT.

A key finding of the survey is the concern of almost 60% of respondents that the new Construction Act, which will come into force this July, will not in itself lead to an improvement and speeding up of building permitting. This major recodification brings extensive changes to related laws and implementing decrees, which are not yet finalised. In addition, the constant amendment of laws brings a sense of legal uncertainty. All these changes affect both designers and building authority staff. So far, no one has seen the draft ordinances with requirements for transport construction, which are to be prepared by the Ministry of Transport, or the draft municipal building regulations, which are being prepared by the cities of Prague, Brno and Ostrava.

"The new building law and ordinances provide for a sufficiently long transition period. Until 30 June 2027, it will be possible to submit and, of course, approve projects according to the existing rules. It is entirely up to the builder which regulation he chooses, but the new one brings a number of advantages, including cheaper construction in many cases. As regards concerns about the complexity and lack of coordination between the authorities concerned in the construction procedure, the new Construction Act addresses this. Data obtained from a citizen by one authority will not be requested again by other authorities. If the builder does not add the binding opinions of the authorities concerned to the application, the building authority will request them itself and will not stop the building procedure because of this. If the authorities concerned do not deliver their binding opinions within the given deadlines, the fiction of consent will apply in most cases," says Veronika Hešíková, spokesperson for the Ministry of Regional Development.

"We fear that construction authorities are and will be overwhelmed by new requirements and will postpone decisions out of alibis or lack of capacity. The legal 30-day deadline will not help either, because it is still possible to start proceedings from the beginning again even for a slight administrative error in the submission," warns Michal Drahorád, vice-chairman of ČKAIT. According to him, it was a mistake that the recodification of construction law was carried out without analysing the actual length of the permit procedure and identifying the main procedural problems. The authors of the law referred only to the Doing Business ranking, which, however, the World Bank stopped publishing in 2020 due to the unreliability of data and misleading methodology.

The Chamber recommended assessing the impact of the previous major amendment to the old Construction Law in January 2018, which changed 44 laws. This was followed by Amendment No. 403/2020, which concerned binding opinions of the authorities concerned, including how binding opinions could be challenged. From January 2021, it became effective that if the concerned authority does not issue a binding opinion within 30 days, it is fictitious. "So already now, under the old Construction Act, if the concerned authority is inactive, it is as if it had agreed without conditions. The only problem remains that the acts of the authorities concerned can be conditioned by others. The NSZ has only extended the fiction of binding opinions to the statements of the authorities concerned," explains Eva Kuzmová, a member of the ČKAIT Legislative Commission.

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Source: ČKAIT, Skypaper