Road owner liability
During the cold season, property owners and road maintenance workers have an increased duty of care with regard to the maintenance of their roads. This article is intended to provide an overview of the duties and potential dangers for property owners and road maintenance workers.
The so-called “pathkeeper’s liability” according to § 1319a ABGB stipulates that the owner of a path is only liable for damages resulting from the defective condition of his path if he caused the defect intentionally or through gross negligence.
COLUMN: Director's price agreement and the obligation to work economically
To compensate for the service within the framework of a work contract, the contracting parties can use different billing options. The three most important options are the unit price, the flat rate and the cost per hour.
The unit price is characterized by the fact that the total service to be provided by the contractor is broken down into individual partial services or "units". A separate price is then shown for each individual unit. In addition, it is stated how often the service units are expected to occur. The quantity is therefore subject to a certain degree of variability.
Right of the customer to cancel the work
In Austrian contract law, the principle applies that a legally valid contract cannot be terminated by one party without reason (pacta sunt servanda). However, for a work contract, the customer can cancel the work contract at any time, except in the case of an expressly agreed irrevocability.
CURRENTS ON THE TOPIC OF CONSTRUCTION: Right to refuse performance
The starting point is a classic situation in which a contractor (hereinafter referred to as the entrepreneur) delivers a defective work to the customer (hereinafter referred to as the purchaser) and still demands the full price. Is the customer still obliged to pay and how should he behave if the contractor is willing to remedy the defect?
CURRENTS ON CONSTRUCTION: Functional service description
The contractor must produce the work without delay and without defects. The properties the work must have are to be determined by interpreting the contract. In practice, two types of performance description (SD) have been developed in this regard: With the functional SD, the work must fulfil a specific function. The type of execution is left to the contractor. With the constructive SD, the contractor must produce the work according to a type of execution specified by the client. What is actually owed is always a question of the individual case. However, the Supreme Court (OGH) has developed guidelines in its case law that the parties must in any case observe when drawing up the contract.
Contractual penalties for construction delays
In general, a contractual penalty refers to a sum of money promised to the contractual partner in the event that the promiser does not fulfill his contractual obligations or does not fulfill them properly. Such agreements are common in construction law and are used in particular to secure a construction completion deadline.
BAU: Active legitimation of a condominium owner
Common parts of a property are those that are for general use or whose intended purpose precludes exclusive use. These include, for example, stairwells or a communal garden. In this regard, the question arises as to whether the individual apartment owner (WE) or exclusively the apartment owners' association (WEG) has active legal standing to assert warranty claims.
Safety during construction
Unless otherwise agreed, the building contractor's claim for remuneration is only due when the work is completed. Due to the firm connection between the building and the land, the client acquires ownership as soon as the work is constructed. This means that the usual security options, such as retention of title, are no longer available and the building contractor is exposed to a greater risk of insolvency of the building contractor. For this reason, the legislator has created a security claim for the building contractor for part of the outstanding remuneration claim in Section 1170b ABGB. Section 1170b ABGB is mandatory law and cannot be contractually waived by an agreement between the parties. However, the scope of application is limited in that Section 1170b ABGB does not apply if the building contractor is a consumer or a legal entity under public law (e.g. a local authority).
Where does the harassment begin - harassment in the event of minor border crossing
When building boundary structures, such as a fence or a wall, minor border crossings often occur. The resulting neighborhood dispute is often settled in court, with the parties not usually deterred by the not inconsiderable costs of bringing in a surveying expert. Once the crossing of the property boundary and thus the infringement of another's property rights has been established, the question still arises as to whether even minor border crossings are sufficient to justify a claim for removal?
BAU: When the weather doesn't play ball during construction - the weather-related disruption to the construction process
Construction schedules are usually calculated very tightly. The property developer wants to sell his apartments as soon as possible, the private house builder would rather move into his own home sooner rather than later in order to avoid the unpopular additional costs. Along the way, numerous circumstances must be taken into account, to which even the most careful planner is defenseless. As soon as the initial shock of the sudden onset of winter, flooding or never-ending rain has passed, the question arises as to what legal consequences such accidental disruptions have for the construction schedule?