A development project in progress: pending proceedings will move under the new rules

What Has Changed Since the Amendment Was Discussed in the Summer

In the summer, the amendment was discussed as a bill that was only just heading to the Senate, and the interpretation of the transitional provisions was based on past practice. The Senate rejected the amendment in August 2026, the Chamber of Deputies overrode its veto on 9 September and the President signed the law on 17 September. The approved wording, however, confirmed that the transitional provisions are set up differently from what had become customary with previous amendments to building law.

A common model in earlier changes to the Building Act was that proceedings already initiated would be completed under the existing regulations. Developers therefore had a simple rule of thumb: if I file today, my proceedings will run under the old rules until the end. That certainty does not apply to the current amendment, and planning cannot be built on it.

For a project in progress, this means the rules are changing mid-game. A project whose application was filed in June and which, under the original assumption, was to be completed under the old regime will, once the amendment takes effect, generally be assessed under the new rules. The change concerns not only procedural details but also what the authority assesses itself in place of the authorities concerned.

The good news is that the proceedings do not go back to the beginning and the investment in preparations made so far is not lost. The less good news is that this creates a new task that most projects do not have in their schedule: reviewing the pending case file against the new wording and identifying what the authority will additionally require once the amendment takes effect.

The reason why the transition has been set up this way is, moreover, understandable. If the old and new rules were to run in parallel for several years, the authorities would have to apply two regimes simultaneously and the reform would only show its effects in practice after a delay. For developers, however, it means that the certainty they were used to with previous amendments is not available this time, and plans need to be built differently.

This is not a planning error on the part of those who filed their applications earlier. The interpretation the market worked with all summer was based on past practice and was only corrected by the final form of the approved wording. In practical terms, this means that even well-prepared projects need a review, and that this is additional work, not the correction of anyone's mistake.

What the Transitional Provisions Actually Say

The core of the rule is a single sentence: proceedings and procedures initiated but not completed before the effective date will be completed under the wording in force from the date the amendment takes effect, unless provided otherwise. In practice, the last part is just as important as the first. There are a number of exceptions; they determine what survives of the preparations made so far, and some of them are tied precisely to the proceedings having been initiated before the effective date.

The second rule protects what you already have. Binding opinions, consents, statements and final decisions of the authorities concerned issued before the new authorities are established are to have legal significance and effects under the existing regulations. The rule that the authority will not reassess the public interest they protect, however, applies to a binding opinion or decision submitted by the developer, not to every document in the case file.

The third rule concerns construction requirements and is crucial for designers. In proceedings already initiated, it should be sufficient to meet the existing requirements if they are more favourable for the developer. This is precisely where the filing date matters: anyone who files only after the effective date will not have this particular advantage. For a specific project, it is therefore necessary to assess which set of rules is more favourable and, where appropriate, to assert this before the authority.

The fourth rule concerns documentation and is worth remembering. Documentation and project documentation prepared under the existing regulations should still be submittable with an application for three years after the amendment takes effect, and the authority will review it under the existing regulations. Drawings in progress will therefore not end up in the bin, and switching to the new content requirements for documentation is not something that has to be done by the end of the year.

The fifth rule determines who will conduct the proceedings. Until the regional territorial development authorities are established, the existing regional and municipal building authorities and the authorities concerned will continue to handle initiated proceedings and procedures. Beware, however, of matters that will fall to the central Territorial Development Authority: these will be transferred as early as January 2027, while the regional system will only start a year later.

One final note on this interpretation is important and applies to the entire article. As at the date of writing, the law had not been published in the Collection of Laws and has no number, so we are working with the wording approved by the Chamber of Deputies and signed by the President. The transitional provisions were also the subject of amendment proposals, so the specific impact on a specific case file must always be verified against the published text before supplementary documents are filed.

What You Will Carry Over from Your Preparations So Far

Taking stock of what you already have is now more important than considering timing. For a project in progress, it pays to list all the opinions, consents and statements obtained, together with their date of issue and validity period, and only then make decisions based on that list. It is precisely this list that determines how much of the preparation is protected and what will be assessed again.

The environmental impact assessment has a special position among the supporting documents. For large projects, an opinion issued under the Environmental Impact Assessment Act lies on the critical path of the schedule and takes months to obtain. Those who have one hold the most expensive part of the preparation and have no reason to wait for the amendment or to fear it.

The second group consists of documents linked to the unified environmental opinion. The integration of matters under the Unified Environmental Opinion Act into the decision-making of the building authority does not happen for all buildings at once: for standard matters, the existing regime will continue to apply throughout 2027. Moreover, a binding opinion that has already been issued does not merely serve as a supporting document—under the given conditions, the public interest it protects is not reassessed.

What in your case file is protected and what is not cannot be determined in general terms, because the decisive factors are the date of issue of each individual document and which group of exceptions it falls into. ARROWS lawyers therefore review this file by file, not across the board by type of building, and the outcome commonly differs between two similar projects.

The third group consists of documents that will carry their effects over, but only for a limited period. Many opinions have a validity period stated directly in their text, and for projects where preparation has dragged on, it is often shorter than the developer remembers. Renewing them is inexpensive if planned, and costly if it is only discovered when the authority requests supplementary documents and a deadline is already running.

The practical output of the inventory is therefore not just a list, but also a calendar. For each document, record how long it remains valid and how long its renewal takes, and use this to derive the latest filing date that still makes sense. This date is often a harder constraint on the schedule than anything the amendment brings.

It is sensible to carry out the same inventory of contractual obligations linked to the permit. Acquisition agreements, loan documentation and contracts with contractors often use the date on which the permit becomes final as the decisive moment and assume a length of proceedings based on past experience. If the proceedings drag on during the transition period, this triggers a chain of consequences the project did not account for.

Four Typical Scenarios and What to Do in Each

For a project in the study phase with an application years away, it pays to prepare directly under the new model. It is not, however, an obligation: it should still be possible to submit documentation under the existing regulations for three years after the effective date. This is also the group of projects that can calmly make use of the expanded preliminary information and find out from the authority in advance what it will require of the project. We go through the new procedure step by step in the article A Single Stamp for Large Development Projects.

A project with an EIA underway and opinions being prepared should continue at an unchanged pace. The documents obtained will carry their effects over, so interrupting the preparation would only mean losing time. In parallel, it is worth commissioning a comparison of the documentation in progress with the new wording, so that it is clear what will need to be supplemented.

For an application ready to be filed in the coming months, the filing date will not determine the entire regime, but it will determine individual advantages. Filing earlier does not mean staying in the old world, but it does open up the possibility of using the existing construction requirements where they are more favourable. Alongside this, the completeness of the application is decisive: defects can be rectified at the authority's request, but each of them delays the entire proceedings.

A project with proceedings already underway needs to do one thing that nobody planned before: compare the filed case file with the new wording and identify what the authority will additionally require once the amendment takes effect and, conversely, which exceptions under the transitional provisions can be invoked to its advantage. In our experience, the further along the proceedings are, the smaller the difference tends to be, but for projects filed this spring it is worth commissioning the review before the authority's request arrives.

One common rule applies to all four scenarios: preparation must not be interrupted. The decision on the timing of the filing can still be fine-tuned, but work on the documentation and opinions continues in the same way under both options. Interrupting preparation pushes back the entire schedule by the time during which nothing happened, and that time is never made up.

The general protective instruments against delays under the Administrative Procedure Code also remain in place, so a developer need not tolerate inaction by the authority during the transition period. There is, however, a difference between inaction and a request to supplement the application, which the Building Act expressly provides for and which the authority should, where possible, issue for all defects at once.

The order in which these four scenarios are dealt with is determined by the size of the potential loss, not the size of the project. Case files with a filed application and proceedings underway come first, because they face a request for supplementary documents at a time when deadlines are already running. Only then come projects not yet filed, where there is room to work calmly and every adjustment is cheaper.

When Withdrawing an Application Makes Sense—and When It Is a Costly Mistake

The idea of withdrawing a pending application and re-filing it after the amendment takes effect has lost its most frequently cited reason. It made sense as long as it was assumed that initiated proceedings would not transition to the new regime and that a project could only enter it through a new application. When pending proceedings switch over to the new rules automatically, you pay the full price for this particular purpose and get nothing in return.

That price is not small. By withdrawing, you lose the procedural progress made so far, a new fee obligation typically arises, and you expose yourself to the risk of interim changes in the area—new parties may join, the land-use planning documentation may change, or the interpretation of the project's compliance may shift. You also lose the exceptions under the transitional provisions that are tied to initiated proceedings.

That does not mean withdrawal ceases to be a tool. One situation in which it may be considered is where, following a change in the brief, the project crosses the threshold for reserved constructions and the competent authority changes as a result. Others typically include a fundamental change to the project, a change in the property law situation or a procedural state that cannot be rectified otherwise. Each of these is decided on the basis of the specific case file.

When it pays to withdraw an application and when it is an unnecessary loss is among the questions we are asked most often on development projects—ARROWS lawyers therefore first assess the state of the case file and only then recommend a course of action. You can find more details on the reserved construction regime in the article Building Permits for Large Development Projects.

An alternative that is often forgotten in practice is changing the project during the proceedings. Where withdrawal is being considered because of a design change, it is often cheaper to apply for a change within the pending proceedings and keep the procedural progress made so far. The line between what can still be handled by a change and what requires a new application is, moreover, finer than is usually assumed, and it is assessed individually for each project.

Deciding on withdrawal therefore follows a simple order. First, identify what it is meant to achieve; then verify whether the same result can be achieved by changing the project within the pending proceedings; and only at the end calculate the cost of the lost procedural progress, the new fee obligations and the forfeited exceptions under the transitional provisions. Those who reverse this order and start with the cost usually end up with a decision that cannot be defended either to the bank or to their own board, because there is no documented reason why the procedural progress was given up in the first place.

Risks for Projects in Progress

The risks for a project in progress differ depending on how far the preparation has advanced. The following overview summarises those most often underestimated in practice.

Summary: What to Do with a Project in Progress

The decision on timing has largely become a decision on readiness. The question of whether to file this year or wait no longer determines the project's entire regime, because pending proceedings will switch over to the new wording. It does, however, still determine the individual advantages tied to initiated proceedings, and alongside it stands the question of what needs to be ready at the moment of filing.

This leaves the management of a development company with three tasks. Take an inventory of the documents obtained and their validity. Compare the documentation in progress and the filed case file with the new wording, and assess which exceptions under the transitional provisions can be used. And adjust the deadlines in contracts with suppliers and the financing bank so that the transition period does not fall entirely on you.

Projects that take these three steps by the end of the year will enter 2027 without surprises. Projects that do not will learn about the difference from the authority's request for supplementary documents—that is, at a time when deadlines are already running and every addition is more expensive than if it had been prepared in advance.

We discuss the amendment itself and both of its effective dates in the main article of the series, The Building Act Amendment Has Been Signed. This text builds on it by addressing projects that are already underway.

The cost of these three steps is, moreover, incomparable with the cost of postponing them. Taking an inventory of documents and comparing the case file with the new wording is a matter of days, whereas supplementary documents requested by the authority in the middle of a running deadline mean a delay of months and, for projects with financing in place, a direct cost in the form of an extended drawdown period.

Email us at consultation@arws.cz with your project's preparation stage and a list of the documents you already have. We will tell you what is protected, what will need to be supplemented and whether it is worth considering withdrawal for your case file. You can find more about our practice on the development and construction law page.