Technical specification and plans

Technical specification

As part of the contract with the contractor, every resident receives a technical specification. The contractor is bound by the specification under the Sale (Apartments) Law, and must supply everything he committed to in it.

Part of the specification refers to the apartment itself, and it is checked as part of a home inspection (bedek bayit) of a new apartment from a contractor. You can also read about checking the apartment's specification on the page home inspection and the technical specification.

The second part of the specification refers to the common areas. These are a few examples of non-conformities we found in residential buildings:

1. According to the specification, the stairwell was supposed to be clad in ceramic tiles up to a certain height, and in practice this was not done.
2. The utility cabinets in the main lobby were supposed to have a wood veneer, and in practice they are made of exposed sheet metal.
3. The specification includes provision for a guard station, and in practice it was not built.

Plans

As part of the contract with the contractor, every resident also receives a set of plans. The contractor is bound by the plans under the Sale (Apartments) Law, and must build according to them.

There are two kinds of deviation from the plan:

1. Deviation from the dimensions of the common spaces. For the dimensions in the plan there is a permitted deviation of 2%.
2. Deviation from the designated use. For example: the plan shows a shared storage room, but in practice the room serves as a technical room for a fan. In such a case the residents suffer a loss of value, because they did not receive the shared storage room promised in the contract.

This is the place to mention a case from a building in Petah Tikva, whose plan showed a generator room. In practice it turned out that the building was small, and that a small building is not required to install a generator.

In such a case, does the contractor have to credit the residents with the cost of the generator he saved? The court ruled that he does: the contractor committed to a generator, and in practice a building was built without one, which certainly lowers its value.