What is a work acceptance report
The work acceptance report is the document by which the owner formally accepts the completed work from the contractor's hands, once the works director and construction supervisor have issued the final certificate of work. From the date of this report the legal guarantee periods regulated by the Building Code (LOE) start running.
It is not merely an administrative formality: signing the report without checking the actual condition of the work can leave the owner without margin to claim later defects that were already visible at the time of acceptance.
What the acceptance report must contain per the Building Code
The Building Code requires the acceptance report to include: the identification of the parties involved, the date of the final certificate of the entirety of the work or of the completed and terminated phase, the final cost of material execution, the declaration of acceptance with or without reservations, specifically detailing any defect detected and the deadline to correct it, the guarantees required from the contractor, and the final work certificate itself signed by the supervising architect.
A report that omits any of these elements, especially the exact date or the final cost, can create later problems in determining when guarantee periods start or what amount remains to be settled.
Acceptance with reservations versus acceptance without reservations
If defects are detected at the time of acceptance, the report must include them objectively along with the deadline for correction, known as acceptance with reservations. Once those defects are corrected, a separate report must be drawn up, signed by the same parties who signed the acceptance, that documents the correction.
Accepting the work without reservations when visible defects actually exist weakens the owner's position for later claims: the unreserved report is, in practical terms, a declaration that the work is delivered as agreed.
When guarantee periods start running after the acceptance report
The Building Code establishes three guarantee periods that start running from the date of the acceptance report: ten years for material damage caused by defects affecting the foundation, supports, beams, floor slabs, load-bearing walls or other structural elements; three years for those affecting the building's habitability; and one year for execution defects affecting finishing elements or finishes of the works.
This is why the exact date in the report matters more than it appears: an error of a few weeks in that date can shift the beginning or end of any of these three guarantee periods.
Difference between provisional and final acceptance
In some construction contracts, especially in public works or contracts that expressly agree it, a distinction is made between provisional acceptance, which opens a verification period before final acceptance, and final acceptance, which closes that period if no significant incidents have appeared. In private residential construction, the usual approach is for the Building Code to operate with a single acceptance, unless the contract between the parties expressly establishes that two-phase scheme.
It is advisable to review what acceptance scheme the specific contract for each work includes before assuming the single-act model applies: the existence or not of a provisional phase depends on what was agreed, it is not automatic in all cases.
How Bloqbase supports tracking the acceptance report
Bloqbase can help keep recorded the date of the acceptance report for each work, together with the noted reservations and their correction deadlines, to calculate from there when the applicable legal guarantee periods expire.
The software does not draft the report or replace the supervising architect's judgment in assessing whether the work is in condition to be accepted with or without reservations: that technical decision continues to belong to the works director and construction supervisor.