MDA on new building regulations

The Malta Developers Association (MDA) refers to the Legal Notice on the Avoidance of damage to third party property regulations (LN 136 of 2019), published yesterday under the Building Regulation Act. 

MDA strongly believes that these regulations help to clarify many existing anomalies related to the different responsibilities in the construction industry. Before these new regulations, owners or developers could engage anyone, competent or incompetent, to carry out works, even against the express advice and discretion of the architect responsible for the works.

In this scenario, while the MDA agrees that site managers who represent the contractor on site have to be technically qualified persons, they need not necessarily be a warranted perit.

However, MDA also believes that the construction industry urgently needs an immediate, more radical change that would include the setting up of a development council empowered to licence rock excavators and demolition contractors. These responsibilities are not currently regulated in any way, and anyone (whether qualified or not) can today take up contracts for such work.

This change would also set up a register of approved developers, something that the MDA has been suggesting to the authorities for a number of years.

This legal notice does not in any way imply that consctruction works should stop (Regulation 26) and therefore MDA intends to call an information meeting early next week for all contractors, developers and builders in Malta and Gozo. More information will be given soon.