Technical Inspection of Buildings: Procedure and Passport

Duties of the owner and the executor

The owner or manager is responsible for routine and periodic technical inspections of an object accepted for operation, and the law puts this on them for its whole life. They also decide to carry out an inspection. If an object is damaged by an emergency, hostilities or a terrorist act, an authorised body may decide as well: the executive body of a village, settlement or city council or, in cases set by law, a military administration.

The inspection is carried out by a qualified executor: a person with a qualification certificate for inspection work or an organisation employing such people. See Who May Conduct a Technical Inspection.

The owner’s part:

• orders the inspection under a contract and agrees the technical specification;
• collects the documentation on the object and hands it to the executor;
• gives safe access to structures and rooms (power off where needed, clearing, lighting, sometimes simply being on site);
• receives the passport or report, submits the passport to the local self-government body and decides what next: repair, strengthening or restricted use.

The executor draws up the work programme, carries out the inspection and produces the result. If they find defects that could sharply reduce load-bearing capacity, cause collapse or loss of stability, or endanger life and health, they must notify in writing the owner or manager, the local authorities and the territorial bodies of the State Labour Service and the State Emergency Service (if an authorised body ordered the inspection, the owner or manager and that body). The notice must go out without delay, and within two days of the date the defects are found at the latest.

Which documents are needed

Before work starts, the customer collects whatever exists on the object and hands it to the executor:

• the design and as-built documentation, including geodetic documents;
• the results of geotechnical surveys;
• technical inventory data;
• the results of earlier inspections;
• operating documentation, including records of repairs, strengthening and reconstruction;
• the object’s passport, if one exists.

The executor studies these materials at the preparation stage. A full set is not always available: missing data, such as member sections or the actual dimensions of joints, is taken by measurement on site, and the scope of work grows.

The report describes the operating conditions and surroundings, so the executor also needs to know how the object is used: temperature and humidity, the composition and amount of dust, how aggressive the environment is, the operating mode, loads from equipment and rolling stock, any flooding, hurricanes or icing. From this they refine the actual loads and actions; what the documents lack is found out by questioning the operating staff.

Stages of the inspection

The current procedure has three stages. The first two are always the same; the final document depends on the grounds for the inspection.

1. Preparation. The executor gets to know the object and its space-planning and structural solutions, studies the as-built geodetic documentation and survey materials and analyses the design and technical documents. From the technical specification agreed by the owner or manager they draw up a work programme. The specification states the purpose, the number of stages and the work in each, the deadline, the reporting documents and whether a passport is needed.

2. Preliminary and/or main (detailed) inspection. The preliminary one is a continuous visual examination: the executor finds defects and damage by external signs, measures and photographs them where needed, plots them on site-referenced diagrams, assesses the condition provisionally and writes a preliminary conclusion. A main inspection is needed when defects could reduce the strength, stability or stiffness of structures or the performance of engineering systems, or when the needs of people with limited mobility have not been taken into account. It covers analysis of defects and their causes, the actual loads and actions, detailed measurement of geometry, instrumental determination of defect parameters, and verification calculations of the load-bearing structures, the foundations and the object as a whole.

3. The final document. After a scheduled inspection it is the object passport (or amendments to the existing one), drawn up from the report. After an inspection because of defects or damage, including from fire, an accident or hostilities, it is a report with recommendations on further operation. Before the design of a major repair, reconstruction or restoration, it is a report with recommendations on that work.

Not all of this is needed every time. If the preliminary inspection finds no defects that reduce strength, stability or stiffness, there may be no main stage; the preliminary conclusion then just says how to operate the object safely. Whether a main inspection is needed is decided with the executor by the owner, the manager or the authorised body. The technical specification sets the number of stages and the work in each according to the purpose.

An inspection from photographs, video or drawings alone, without looking at the object on site, is not allowed, except in cases set by the ministry responsible for construction (Minrozvytku). Objects damaged by an accident, hostilities or a terrorist act are inspected after emergency rescue and other urgent work and after demining.

The “preliminary, detailed and special inspection” scheme you may still meet comes from the rules of 1997, no longer in force; the current procedure has no special stage.

What the technical report contains

The executor writes the report, and its contents are set by the Methodology for Carrying Out Inspections and Drawing Up Their Results (order No. 144 of the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of 6 August 2022). In general it contains:

• a title page: the executor’s details, the report title, signatures of those responsible, including the head of the work;
• an introduction: the subject of the contract, data on the customer and the expert or team, the purpose and tasks, source data, metrological support;
• a short description of the object: general information, technical indicators, structures and systems, operating conditions, an analysis of the documentation;
• a list of defects and damage, with diagrams, photographs and measured drawings in the appendices;
• the results of inspections, measurements and verification calculations;
• conclusions and recommendations: the condition of elements, systems and the object as a whole; urgent anti-emergency work and mothballing where needed; a conclusion on operation, repair, reconstruction, restoration or demolition; the recommended date of the next inspection.

After the preliminary inspection the executor writes an interim report with a preliminary conclusion on condition and a recommendation either to go on to the main inspection or to keep using the object safely. The full report follows the main inspection; if none is needed, the preliminary results are issued as a report of the same composition.

How condition is assessed from measurements and calculations is covered in Diagnostics and Assessment of the Technical Condition; the methodological basis is the guideline DSTU 9273:2024.

The object passport

The object passport is drawn up on the results of a scheduled inspection, either for the first time or by amending the existing one. An inspection because of defects or damage, or before a repair design, ends under the Procedure with a report with recommendations, and for damaged objects the Procedure says outright that no passport is required. In other cases the technical specification states whether a passport is needed.

The executor who carried out the inspection draws up the passport, on paper and in electronic form for the object as a whole, on the approved form and using the Register of Construction Activity. Under the methodology it is created from the report, and both go into the register (except for objects subject to state secrecy). A passport cannot be drawn up from the inspection of only part of an object, individual elements or engineering networks.

The passport is made in three copies of equal legal force. The executor hands it to the owner or manager within ten days of drawing it up and provides a paper copy on request. The owner or manager then submits it to the local self-government body, on paper and in electronic form, within a month of receiving it.

The passport records the results of the inspection and the date of the next one. For objects subject to mandatory inspection, the designer sets the first date and the recommended frequency in the design documentation, and the interval between inspections may not exceed 10 years. If the object was accepted for operation before 10 June 2017 and its consequence class was not determined, the class is established during the inspection and also entered in the passport.

The passport and the report do not replace a design. The owner decides on repair, strengthening or restricted use on the executor’s recommendations, and load-bearing structures are repaired and strengthened to a design by a design organisation.