Real Estate Development — the Legal Framework for the Developer
A development project consists of three legal blocks: construction, financing and the disposal of the result. The construction block rests on the works contract — Article 629: the contractor undertakes to perform the work provided by the contract, the client is obliged to pay the agreed remuneration; and where the contractor makes the thing from his own materials, he transfers to the client ownership of the thing made. Drawing up a cost estimate is not reimbursed unless otherwise agreed. For the developer this means: every construction relationship is framed by this structure, and the scale of the project changes only the number of contracts.
With the growth of scale grows the hierarchy of contracts: the developer often contracts with a general contractor, while subcontractors build their own relationships beneath it. In this chain each claim finds its basis in its own contract, and exactly therefore the documentary architecture of the project — who with whom, for what and on which terms — is the legal map of the development.