The Supreme Administrative Court has upheld earlier case law according to which the issuance of a building permit based on invalid opinions of infrastructure owners may give cause for the annulment of the permit.
In its very recent judgment 6 As 84/2024-36 of 19 March 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed previous case law according to which a decision whereby a development project is being approved (i.e., in the case at hand, a decision on the ex-post permission of an unauthorized structure) may be annulled in an administrative appeal procedure or judicial review procedure, if the decision was issued based on invalid opinions by the owners of transportation infrastructure or technical infrastructure.
What is more, the Supreme Administrative Court explicitly held that the invalidity of such opinions may be invoked by almost any participant to a permitting procedure, without having to argue in what specific way the invoked invalidity of the said opinions infringes their ownership title or other rights in rem.
What are the practical consequences of this ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court?
It appears that the ‘invalidity of opinions submitted by owners of transportation or technical infrastructure’ will remain a favorite tool of obstruction – used by the participants to permitting procedures not for the primary purpose of defending their legitimate rights and interests but, not infrequently, so as to abuse their procedural rights for self-serving reasons, their goal being to make the permitting procedure more difficult for the investor and to prevent the planned building from coming into existence, whatever it may take.
Unfortunately, this obstructionist defense tends to be highly successful within the context of large-scale development projects for entire sets of residential buildings or office complexes, in particular within limits of big cities.It is often responsible for months-long delays in permitting procedures.
Some hope for the future may be sought in the rules laid out in the new Building Act (Act No. 283/2021 Coll.) which, among other things, takes permitting procedures to the digital realm.According to the new piece of legislation, the only transportation and technical infrastructure which enjoys protection within permitting procedures is supposed to be that which has been captured in the so-called digital technical map, and the submission of requests for the relevant opinions and their updates should be possible via the Builder’s Portal.
At any rate, our recommendation for clients remains the same: out of prudence, they are well advised to carefully monitor whether all materials which they submit to the building authorities are up-to-date and valid throughout permitting procedures, and to ensure that they remain so also during appellate procedures.
Source:
Judgment 6 As 84/2024-36 of the Supreme Administrative Court