What is decennial liability in the UAE?
Under the UAE Civil Code (Arts. 880–883), the contractor and the supervising engineer are JOINTLY liable for ten years for structural defects — total or partial collapse, and defects threatening the building’s stability or safety. It runs from completion, it sits underneath whatever contractual defects period you agreed, and it cannot be contracted away. Which means handover records need to outlive the DLP by roughly a decade.
What it covers, and who carries it
The liability attaches to structural failure: total or partial collapse, and defects that threaten the stability or safety of the building.
It is joint — contractor and supervising engineer together — and it is not something a well-drafted clause can exclude. Attempts to contract out of it are void.
Why it changes your records policy, not just your risk register
A 12-month defects liability period and a 10-year decennial exposure are two different horizons, and most handover archives are built for the first one.
If a structural argument arrives in year eight, the question will be what the inspection and snagging record shows — the work inspection requests, the photographic evidence, the closure verifications. A record that was archived to satisfy a 12-month DLP is not a defence in year eight.
In the guides
Terms
References
- module: /modules/snag-list/ — Al Tamimi commentary on UAE decennial liability (Civil Code Arts. 880–883)
Zepth is the construction project delivery platform — it runs construction, procurement and asset management on one record, and does the work: reading the drawings, reviewing the submittals, matching the invoices and flagging the risks, with a human sign-off on anything consequential.
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