Hiring a builder in the Carpathians: who builds, who maintains, what the contract must say

Hiring a builder in the Carpathians is less a question of finding one than of paperwork. Crews in Kosiv district are found through neighbours, friends and other people's houses; the money is lost later — when the quote drifts, when the foundation waterproofing has been backfilled with nobody having recorded what went in, and when the crew that promised a warranty stops answering the phone. Most of the rules protecting you as the client already sit in Ukraine's Civil Code. They only work if there is a written contract, signed acceptance acts and an identifiable party to hold to them.

The limits of this article first. We quote no price per square metre and no crew rates: both change every season and from village to village. Everything below is either written in legislation currently in force or a check you can make yourself before the first payment. If you are building from abroad, that matters twice over, because the paperwork is the only part of the project you can control from a distance. The second half covers who maintains the house after handover.

Who actually builds: three kinds of contractor

In practice you will meet three: a building company, a sole trader (FOP) running his own crew, and an unregistered crew paid in cash. The Civil Code does not forbid a construction contract with a private individual, and its articles on quality and warranty still apply. The difference is practical: what you can prove, and whom you can go back to in five years.

A word on licences, because they are often used as a selling point. Ukraine's licensing law requires a licence only for building projects in consequence classes CC2 and CC3. A private house built on a notice of commencement — the route for CC1 projects and for houses under a construction passport — is neither. So "we are licensed" says nothing about the quality of work on your house, and an unlicensed builder is not thereby at fault.

For a house under a construction passport, the law expressly lets you skip a design: it is prepared "solely at the client's wish". Yet the Civil Code requires the contractor to build to the design and estimate documentation, and requires the contract to say what that documentation is and who supplies it. With no design, the only document describing the house you are paying for is your contract and its schedules. We covered the passport route separately in construction passport vs building permit.

How to vet a contractor before the first payment

It takes an evening and costs nothing. The Unified State Register is public, and the law provides free access to it for the purpose of concluding civil contracts — including whether a sole trader's business has been terminated and which activities are registered. In Ukraine's activity classification, construction sits in division 41, construction of buildings, and division 43, specialised construction activities.

1. 1Find the contractor in the state registerA company by its code, a sole trader by name. Check three things: the business is not terminated, the address matches what you are told, and divisions 41 or 43 appear among the activities.
2. 2Search the court registerLook a company up by name and code. For a sole trader, a search by surname yields little: the law requires details that identify a private individual to be replaced with codes in published judgments.
3. 3Check the designer and the site supervision engineerBy law, technical supervision is carried out by people holding a qualification certificate. The state construction e-system keeps registers of certified persons — design engineers, supervision engineers and architects separately. Whoever will sign your documents should be in them.
4. 4Visit houses that are two or three years oldA new house shows off its finishes. One that has come through two winters shows its roof, drainage, damp at the foundation and cracks. Ask for such an address and talk to the owner without the builder standing next to you.
5. 5Ask who will be on siteThe foreman's name, and whether roofing, electrics and plumbing are done by the crew or by subcontractors. That decides whom you take a complaint to, and it belongs in the contract.

The estimate: fixed or approximate, and who pays for overruns

Under Ukraine's Civil Code an estimate is fixed unless the contract says otherwise, and an overrun on a fixed estimate is the contractor's cost. That is article 844. An approximate estimate works differently: when extra work makes a substantial overrun necessary, the contractor must warn you in good time, and you may withdraw from the contract, paying for the work done. If he failed to warn you, he must finish at the contract price.

Extra work has its own rule in article 877. A contractor who finds work the design did not include must tell you and, if you do not answer, stop it. If he said nothing and did it anyway, he loses the right to be paid for it — unless he proves that stopping would have destroyed or damaged the building. On a slope such surprises usually come from underground: rock, water, weak soil. Why the foundation is the dearest part there is covered in foundations on a slope.

Materials are the other place money leaks. By default the contractor works with his own materials and answers for their quality. If you buy them, the law requires him to account for their use and return what is left, and the contract must set consumption norms and a deadline for returning leftovers. Without those lines, "where did three pallets of blocks go" has no answer.

How to pay: in stages, against acts, with evidence

The law does not require you to pay in advance: under article 879 work is paid for after acceptance unless the parties agree otherwise. An advance is a concession you negotiate, not a norm. Each stage is handed over with an acceptance act signed by both sides. Note the flip side: once you have accepted a stage, the risk of its accidental destruction or damage without the contractor's fault passes to you.

• An advance for materials as a separate line, against delivery notes and receipts, and only once the materials are on the plot.
• Each stage with an act listing the work done, the quantities and photographs — not a single sum "for the foundation".
• Payments by bank transfer to the company or sole trader, with a payment reference. A bank statement proves payment ten years on; memory does not.
• The Code allows the contract to hold back part of the price until the warranty period ends. If you agree such a term, it must be written out explicitly.

Acceptance: what you lose by signing an act without looking

Sign an acceptance act without inspecting the work and you lose the right to rely on defects an ordinary inspection would have revealed. Article 853 obliges the client to examine the work and report departures from the contract at once. Hidden defects that surface later must also be reported at once. In a dispute either side can require an expert examination, paid by the contractor unless the expert finds no breach on his part.

You may check progress at any time without interfering in the contractor's work — article 849. The same article lets you withdraw if the contractor is so slow that finishing on time is plainly impossible. If you live far away, your eyes on site are the technical supervisor. The Law on Architectural Activity puts the duty to arrange supervision on the client, and under the Cabinet's procedure the supervision engineer inspects completed work together with the contractor, "including hidden work", keeps count of accepted and paid quantities, and records work done with defects.

1. 1Foundation reinforcement — before the pourPhotographs with a tape measure in frame: the number, diameter and spacing of bars, so they can be compared with the design or the contract. Once concrete is in, this cannot be checked without breaking it out.
2. 2Waterproofing and drainage — before backfillOn a slope water arrives from the side, from the hill. Photograph every foundation wall with its membrane, and the drain pipe with its fall and outlet.
3. 3Roof insulation and vapour barrier — before boardingThe membrane joints, how the insulation meets the rafters, the junction with the chimney. Mistakes here show only a year later, as stains on the ceiling.
4. 4Pipes and cables — before screed and plasterUnderfloor heating and water pipes photographed with the pressure gauge during the pressure test; wiring photographed wall by wall with a tape measure.

The warranty: ten years on the building, and what it gets you

The warranty under a construction contract is ten years from acceptance of the building, unless the contract or a law sets a longer one. That is article 884. During it the contractor answers for defects unless he proves they came from natural wear, improper use, or improper repair by you or by third parties you brought in. You must report a defect within a reasonable time of finding it.

The limitation period for quality claims on buildings is three years from acceptance. But if you reported the defect within the warranty period, the period runs from the date of that report. So a written claim with photographs and a date is not a formality: it starts your clock for court. And one conclusion from the list of exceptions: if the roof leaks, do not call another crew first. Send a written demand to whoever built it, or he will point to "improper repair by third parties".

• Keep the contract, the estimate, every act, the hidden-work photographs and bank statements for at least ten years.
• A contract term excusing the contractor from certain defects does not cover defects arising from his intentional acts or omissions (art. 858).
• Regular maintenance is your evidence of proper use. Without service records it is easier for a contractor to blame any failure on neglect.

Who maintains the house after handover

The builders hand over and leave; different people keep the house running — a stove fitter or chimney sweep, a service engineer for the boiler or heat pump, someone for the borehole pump, a tanker to empty the septic tank, a roofer. For a stove and its flue the frequency is set not by habit but by Ukraine's Fire Safety Rules, which bind private citizens too. Before the heating season, stoves and other heating appliances must be checked and repaired. Flues and stoves are cleaned of soot before and throughout the season: intermittently fired solid- or liquid-fuel stoves at least once every three months, continuously burning stoves every two months, kitchen ranges monthly.

The contract with these people is a different one from the builders' contract. When a tradesman in business does a job for your personal needs — servicing the boiler, repairing the pump, sweeping the chimney — it is a consumer works contract: a public contract to which consumer protection law applies, concluded as soon as the tradesman issues a receipt or another document. So the service receipt is your contract. And a demand to put right, free of charge, defects that may endanger life or health can be made within ten years of accepting the work.

A village has few such people, and everyone needs them in the same month, just before the cold. Book autumn servicing in summer, and collect phone numbers before you buy: ask the seller or the neighbours who swept their chimney and who emptied their tank. If the house will take guests, add someone who handles arrivals and calls tradesmen on your behalf; we covered setting that up in managing a cottage remotely. Costing the heating itself is in heating a house without gas.

What must be on paper before the first payment

1. A written construction contract with an identified party you have found in the state register.
2. An estimate with quantities, stated expressly to be fixed, attached to the contract.
3. A description of the house — a design or, if there is none, a detailed schedule of dimensions, materials and key junctions.
4. A programme of stages with dates that allows for the weather; how to read one is in how long building in the Carpathians takes.
5. Who buys the materials, and how they are accounted for if you do.
6. How stages are accepted by act, and a list of hidden work to be photographed before it is covered.
7. A warranty of no less than the Code's ten years, and who carries out technical supervision.

None of these makes the build more expensive. They only settle who pays when something goes off plan. Our construction service is described on the construction page, and a question about a specific plot goes to contacts.