Technical specification: what the law requires and what an inspection checks

What should you look for in a technical specification, and why does it matter? Arad Bedek Bayit, based in Kiryat Ono, provides home inspections (bedek bayit) throughout the country, for private houses as well as new apartments from a contractor.

A sample specification shows how construction defects often trace back to work that fell short of what the building's technical specification promised. As part of a building inspection, we check the specification the buyer received against the apartment's actual condition.

The legal requirement to provide a specification

By law, a technical specification for a private house, a resale (second-hand) apartment or an apartment from a contractor must be handed to the buyer. The specification is part of the contract and binds the contractor or seller, so it pays to know the law behind it, not just the sample document itself.

Under section 3(a) of the Sale (Apartments) Law, 5733-1973, as noted by the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee, quote:
1. Obligation to deliver the specification
(a) The seller must attach a specification to the sale contract and give the buyer a copy of it signed by him.

(b) Any correction to the specification requires the signatures of both parties.
The law also sets out the wording the specification must use and the clauses it must include. An example follows further on.

No deviation from the specification is allowed

Can a contractor deviate from the technical specification, whether for a private house or an apartment from a contractor? The answer is no. Under the Sale (Apartments) Law, 5733-1973, quote:
Non-conformity (amendment: 5750)

(a) The seller has not fulfilled his obligations toward the buyer if one of the following has occurred:
(1) The apartment, or anything in it (hereinafter: the apartment), differs from what is stated in the specification, in an official standard, or in the building regulations;

When a home inspection engineer inspects an apartment, he is essentially comparing the buyer's technical specification against the actual condition, and identifying construction defects and non-conformities between what was promised and what was delivered.

Examples of gaps between the specification for a contractor apartment and the on-site condition

Examples of non-conformities and construction defects found during home inspections of new apartments and houses:

The missing ventilation fan

During a home inspection in an apartment in a luxury residential building in Kiryat Ono, we found that the technical specification called for mechanical (forced) ventilation in the shower room. None had been installed.

The contractor made do with the fact that the room had a window. Was the contractor obligated to supply the fan, or to compensate the resident, or could the resident simply make do with the window? Under the Sale Law, the contractor must supply exactly what the specification promised, even where there is no engineering need for it. One could argue that since the fan's only purpose is to ventilate the room, an existing window that provides adequate ventilation makes mechanical ventilation unnecessary.

That sounds like a fair engineering argument, but when we measured the window during the inspection, it turned out to be smaller than the Planning and Building Regulations require. The contractor, apparently unaware of that regulation, had decided on his own that an existing window ruled out the need for a fan.

That assumption saved him a large sum, since the building has many apartments. Even if the window had met the size the regulations require, the contractor would still have been bound by the Sale Law and the specification, and would have owed the residents compensation for the fan that was never installed.

Material quality

We inspect homes in Kiryat Ono, the center, the north and the south of the country, by immediate appointment. During an inspection carried out after a renovation in Tzur Yigal, the technical specification called for Mag Kal 7000 windows, a high-quality, expensive product that manufacturers always mark.

No such marking turned up anywhere on the profile or the window itself during the inspection, only the stamp of the supplier who had painted the aluminum. The residents had mistaken that paint supplier's stamp for a mark of quality.

In fact, the windows installed were a significantly inferior product, priced far below what had been promised. The expert opinion detailing these construction defects was handed to the residents and is now being used in a lawsuit against the renovation contractor.