Deformation Tracking Results In A Commercial Building And Their Application At The Stage Of Estimating Physical Depreciation In Valuation For Taxation Purposes

Regardless of the purpose that it serves, deformation tracking makes a crucial stage in the life of a building, because it can signal deterioration before it becomes a structural issue or, even more importantly, before it damages its surrounding environment and/or place at risk the people who use it either temporarily or permanently. According to Order 847/2014, building deformation tracking must be carried out regularly and the outcomes of this activity, which is specific to geodetic engineering, are the basis of an important decision-making system. The analysis of deformation results makes it possible to determine whether deformations are within the normal range of safe operation criteria as well as to accurately identify the areas that require repair works, either minor interventions or major works, if needed. Besides the usefulness of the deformation tracking report – which shows how a building behaves in time – in order to secure its own integrity as well as the integrity of the surrounding environment, the results related to how the land and the building behave in time may serve other purposes as well. One of these purposes is the determination of the current technical state of a construction, especially when the occurring deformations are outside the normal range, in spite of the optimal operation of the building under review and the estimation of the normal physical depreciation starting from the technical condition thus determined. This paper is based on the results collected during five tracking stages of a commercial building’s behavior in time and is aimed at demonstrating the usefulness of considering this type of results in real estate valuation for taxation purposes, because it provides more detailed inputs for the estimation of a building’s physical depreciation.