Comprehensive ten-year liability insurance
The contractor, engineer and architect have a 10-year liability pursuant to articles 1792 and 2270 of the civil code. However, not every building partner used to take out insurance against this liability. The architect used to be the only building partner who was legally required to take out insurance, the other building actors were not. When faced with a non-insured and/or insolvent building partner, there was never any certainty about the compensation of damages.
The new Peeters Act of 31/05/2017 now partially solves this problem and also requires contractors, architects and other construction service providers to take out an insurance policy to cover their ten-year liability. However, this is only for the construction of housing (>50% of the surface area intended for residential purposes). To this end a comprehensive 10-year liability insurance can be taken out together with all the parties involved. Insuring all construction partners with a 10-year liability in a single policy will avoid lengthy discussions about the distribution of the claim.
For the construction of housing it is a legal requirement, for other buildings not a requirement, but a necessity.