Accepting the common parts of a new building: the inspection that belongs before the signature

Everything about this subject follows from one asymmetry: before the signature you are asking for something the developer wants to give you, and after it you are asking for something he does not.

1. The one moment that is not reversible

Acceptance of the common parts is the act by which the building — represented by the interim syndic, often the developer's own team until the first general meeting, and then by the independent syndic — accepts the works as delivered. It is not a formality and it is not a celebration. It is the moment at which the burden of every defect that was never written down moves from the developer to the owners.

What remains afterwards is real but much narrower. The ten-year liability of builders under the Code of Obligations and Contracts reaches serious defects affecting the structure or the fitness of the works for their purpose — it is a genuine protection, and it is set out in our note on the decennial liability in Moroccan construction and the remedies attached to it. What it does not reach is the long tail of ordinary delivery defects: paint applied over damp, sealant that was never run, a lift with one car short of its commissioning documents, an emergency lighting unit that was ordered and never fitted, an accessible ramp built at the wrong gradient. None of those bring a building down. Collectively, they are what a young condominium spends its first years arguing about and its first reserve fund paying for.

The delivery framework itself — what was sold, on what plans, with what specification — sits in the off-plan sale regime under Law 44-00, which our guide to buying off plan in Morocco covers, and the governance that takes over on handover sits in the condominium regime under Law 18-00, covered in our guide to the condominium law. This page is about neither of those. It is about the technical act in between.

2. The 60-point inspection: seven families, in order of what they cost later

The checklist below is ordered deliberately. It does not run from the front door inwards, which is how a walk-round naturally goes; it runs from what is expensive and hidden to what is cheap and obvious. Waterproofing first, decoration last. An inspection that begins in the entrance hall is an inspection that will run out of daylight before it reaches the roof.

Two families deserve a word because they are the ones most often waved through. Common equipment is not inspected by looking at it: a lift is inspected by asking for the commissioning and certification documents car by car, and a building routinely gets delivered with one car documented and the other not. And accessibility is the family where defects are least visible and most expensive, because a ramp built at the wrong gradient or a lift car a few centimetres too narrow cannot be adjusted — it has to be rebuilt.

3. Conducting the inspection in the developer's presence

An inspection carried out alone produces a list. An inspection carried out in the presence of the party who has to put the works right produces an agreement, or a documented disagreement — and both are worth having. The sequence is short:

• Invite the developer in writing, by a means that leaves a record of what was sent and when, with enough notice to attend and to bring the as-built drawings, the specification and the equipment files. The notice period is a matter for the terms of the contract and the rules in force — settle it in writing rather than by telephone.
• Record each defect photographically and by measurement on the day, located precisely enough that somebody who was not there can find it again.
• Price the making-good indicatively, item by item. A defect with no figure against it invites an argument about whether it matters; a defect with a figure against it invites a conversation about who pays.
• Characterise each item: which ground it falls under, and whether it blocks acceptance or is a simple reservation.
• Close the visit with a signed record. If the developer declines to sign, or does not attend, that is itself recorded, together with the evidence that the invitation was properly given.

Be exact about what the resulting document is. It is a technical record made on a stated date, by a named expert, with the other party having had the opportunity to attend and to contradict it. It is documented and verifiable line by line, and it imposes itself on nobody. Where a matter reaches court, the court appoints its own expert. Its practical force comes from being contemporaneous and specific — the same quality that makes an inspection useful in a disagreement with a developer.

4. Writing a schedule of reservations that can be closed out

Most schedules of reservations fail for the same reason: they are written in a register that cannot be discharged. « Waterproofing to be checked » can never be signed off, because nobody can say when it has been done. Each item needs four elements, and the schedule is only as good as its weakest one:

• A precise description — what is wrong, not what should be looked at.
• A located photograph — the roof, the bay, the level, the elevation.
• An indicative cost of making good, so that the item has a weight.
• A priority rating — blocking for acceptance, or a simple reservation to be closed within an agreed period.

Written that way, the schedule becomes a working document: the developer programmes it, the re-inspection ticks it off, and what is left over is a short, specific and priced list rather than a diffuse sense that the building was badly finished. That list is also what the incoming syndic needs in order to take over a building knowingly — and the decisions taken around it belong in the minutes, whose standing is set out in our note on the legal value of general meeting minutes.

5. An anonymised practical case

A residential scheme of several floors delivered on the outskirts of Casablanca, inspected some weeks before the handover to the independent syndic. The findings ran to several dozen items across all seven families, with the heaviest concentrated where they usually are: terminations to the flat roof, one lift car short of its certification documents, fire safety provision partially installed, and access ramps built at gradients that did not work.

Put to the developer with photographs, locations and indicative costs, the great majority were programmed and made good before acceptance; a residue was disputed and settled by agreement between the parties. This is a practical case presented in anonymised form; the figures are not disclosed, and nothing in it should be read as a forecast of what any other building will obtain. What generalises is not the outcome but the sequence: inspect before signing, price what you find, and put it in writing while the other party still needs your signature.

6. Where the technical act stops

Two boundaries are worth stating plainly, because blurring them is how expectations get set too high.

• The inspection covers the common parts. Defects inside a private lot are a separate exercise, on separate documents, and are not cured by a schedule of reservations on the common parts — see our note on defects discovered after purchase and the remedies available.
• The expert records and prices; he does not decide. Characterising an item under one ground rather than another is a technical opinion offered to inform a negotiation. Whether it is well founded in law is for a lawyer, and if it goes further, for a court and the expert the court appoints.

7. Commissioning the inspection

The single most consequential variable is when you commission it. Early enough and you have a negotiation: findings, a programme of making good, a re-inspection, and a signature given on a building you have seen corrected. Late enough and you have a list of grievances handed over on the morning of the signature, which changes nothing except the atmosphere.

Our RICS-certified experts carry out inspections of this kind in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tangier, Fes and Agadir from our offices, and elsewhere in Morocco from our network. A firm quote is issued within 24 hours, from 3,500 MAD excl. tax; reports comply with Red Book standards and are delivered in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service. ReaConsult has been advising owners, buyers and institutional clients since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews. See our technical due diligence service for how an instruction on a whole building is scoped.

Note: this article is informative. The delivery of works sold off plan is governed by Law 44-00, the condominium regime by Law 18-00, and the ten-year liability of builders by the Code of Obligations and Contracts; the notice, form and effect of an acceptance record depend on the contract and on the regulations in force, to be confirmed with your lawyer. The 60-point checklist above describes our own inspection method and no other. No cost of works, fee, timescale or success rate is quoted for the anonymised case described, and none should be inferred. A technical inspection informs a decision and supports a negotiation: it is documented and verifiable line by line, and it imposes itself on nobody. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.