The government will also discuss the notification from the ombudswoman regarding the building regulations

Anna Šabatová

Brno/Praha - The government will discuss on Monday the report of the public defender of rights, Anna Šabatová, regarding the situation in construction. According to her, the Ministry for Regional Development has been long inactive in addressing the issue of the building code, and sometimes binding and enforceable decisions of building authorities are not being fulfilled. She is therefore requesting a remedy.

According to the ombudsman, decisions made by building authorities in the public interest according to the building law are sometimes not enforced. If a building authority imposes an obligation by a binding decision, for example, to remove a building, and the builder or owner voluntarily does not comply, the building authority should resort to forced execution of the decision according to the code.

The building authority, or the municipality, is required to carry out or ensure the ordered work, and can then recover the costs from the owner. However, this is not happening. The ombudsman stated that in the Czech Republic, no funds have been allocated to ensure the forced execution of decisions and municipalities cannot cover these costs from their budgets.

Šabatová is therefore asking the government to instruct the ministry to create a program with rules for providing financial resources from the state budget specifically for covering the costs of executing these decisions.

"Even after many years of warning, a system has not been established that would ensure financial resources for building authorities to enforce decisions in the public interest. The result is a situation where the state has resigned from enforcing the law and where ignoring the law pays off," stated the spokesperson for the ombudsman, Iva Hrazdílková.