Indipendent third party inspection in European Real Estate

Accredited Bodies operating in conformity with the EN 45004 standards run the independent third party inspection in several countries of the European Community. These inspections are performed during the whole construction process. They involve, first of all, the assistance to the customer during the conception phase, the control in both planning and execution phases and the assessment of the ìas builtî. The contribution of such independent third party inspections to the construction cycle and, more in general, to the quality of the building product is very important. This contribution considerably increases both the chances of taking on the contract and the feasibility of the project. Moreover, it helps respecting performance characteristics expected by the customer, costs and times agreed during the planning phase and reducing the risk of nonconformities or of defects. The analysis of the actual condition of the ìas builtî becomes a technical due diligence, which offers guarantees to both buyers and sellers. The added value that an independent inspection body gives, compared to an ordinary service provider, is that the former guarantees independency and impartiality since the inspection body will never carry out designing, execution and selling of both controlled objects and of possible competitorsí. Here follows an explanation, through the examination of the experience of three bodies belonging to the same group and working in France, Spain and Italy, of similarities and differences among several normative and operative approaches held in three Countries of the European Community. France has a twenty-year history of technical analysis, which was introduced by Spinetta Law. Spain only recently started carrying out technical analysis thanks to incentives of insurance companies. In Italy, inspection bodies started operating after the introduction of project verification in the Merloni Law.