From developer to residents’ association: Rethinking monitoring construction sites and handover in residential buildings

Interview with Mariana Garștea, General Manager, Sixense România 

Mariana Garștea, General Manager of Sixense Romania, has spent 15 years working at the intersection of this problem. Sixense România is the country’s leading specialist in structural and geotechnical monitoring construction sites and buildings, and the only company with an ISC-authorised laboratory dedicated exclusively to this field. In this interview, she explains what responsible handover looks like, what the law requires, and what any future apartment owner should know before signing.

The handover moment: where responsibility gets lost

The moment a developer hands over a residential building to a residents’ association is also the moment structural and geotechnical monitoring data risks disappearing entirely. What should legally be transferred, what is the role of Chapter D in the Technical Book in that process, and why does this handover so often fail in practice?

The handover of a residential building from developer to residents’ association should, in technical terms, be a well-documented moment. In practice, it is often the moment when a significant part of the information about the building’s structural behaviour simply vanishes from the picture.

What must be transferred is the Technical Book of the building, in its entirety, including Chapter D – the chapter dedicated to monitoring behaviour over time. This chapter must contain all measurements carried out during the execution phase, the monitoring programme prepared by the design engineer, technical reports signed by certified specialists, and the event log updated with every relevant intervention or observation made during construction. Chapter D is the only document that tells a residents’ association how the building has behaved from its very first moment, and what should continue to be monitored going forward. Without it, the operational phase begins with no technical reference point at all.

The legal obligation exists. Law 10/1995 and Normative P130/2025 are clear about the requirement to monitor the behavior of construction throughout their entire service life, including during operation. Law 196/2018 on residents’ associations places this responsibility directly on the association from the moment the building is received.

The real problem is not the absence of a legal framework. The problem is that the handover process is treated, in most cases, as an administrative formality rather than a transfer of technical responsibility. Documents are handed over – sometimes incomplete – without anyone on the association’s side knowing what to ask for or how to verify what they are receiving. Monitoring carried out during construction exists on paper, but it is not accompanied by any clear explanation of what should happen with it next. And so the data exists, but never gets used.

This is the moment at which a building enters operation without a real history to track and without a clear plan for continuity. The consequences are not immediately visible. But they accumulate.

From design to handover: where the gaps appear

Decisions made during design and execution have a direct impact on what becomes manageable or problematic during the operation of a residential building. Can you walk us through the chain: what gets ignored early on, and where does the cost of that show up?

The chain is quite predictable, and I have seen it repeatedly across many projects.

It starts during the design phase. The monitoring programme should be prepared by the design engineer as an integral part of the technical project, calibrated to the specific risks of that particular building: the type of ground, local geotechnical conditions, the building’s importance class. When this programme is missing or treated superficially, there is no reference framework against which the building’s subsequent behavior can be evaluated.

Then, during execution, monitoring construction sites – when it happens at all – tends to be done to tick a contractual requirement rather than to produce data that is actually useful. Measurements are taken, reports are generated, but no one interprets them or connects them to concrete decisions. The data stays in a folder.

At the point of handover, the pressure is to close out the project. Any observations from the monitoring phase do not reach the residents’ association, and they do not translate into clear recommendations for the operational period.

The cost shows up during operation in predictable ways:

• Repeated cracks in the same areas or at the same floor level
• Uneven settlement, visible as doors and windows that no longer close properly
• Recurring moisture in basements or common areas
• Emergency technical assessments, often disproportionately costly because there is no data to correctly locate and size the problem
• Litigation between residents, associations, and developers – all of which a documented monitoring history could have prevented or resolved quickly

A residential building does not fail suddenly. It signals, but only if the instruments to listen have been built in from the start.

What a proper handover looks like in practice

What does a responsible handover actually look like in practice? What should developers be required to deliver, and what should residents’ associations be asking for before they sign anything?

A responsible handover means that the residents’ association receives not just the keys to a building, but the actual capacity to manage it safely.

From the developer’s side, the handover should include:

• The complete Technical Book with Chapter D updated through to the date of handover
• Monitoring reports produced during execution, signed by an ISC-authorised laboratory
• The monitoring programme prepared by the design engineer for the operational phase, with recommended measurement frequencies and tracked parameters
• A clear summary of any observations or behaviours that require continued attention in the first years of operation

It is not enough for these documents to exist physically. They need to be explained. Residents’ associations do not, as a rule, have technical expertise. A folder of several hundred pages handed over without context will not be used.

Before signing the handover protocol, a residents’ association should ask:

• Was structural and geotechnical monitoring carried out during execution by an authorised laboratory?
• Are there signed reports confirming this?
• Is there a monitoring programme for the operational phase?
• Does the Technical Book contain a completed Chapter D?

If the answer to any of these is unclear or negative, the handover should not be signed without clarification. Signing a handover protocol that does not confirm the existence of these documents means the residents’ association is taking on responsibility for a building without the minimum instruments needed to manage it responsibly.

Why getting this right matters beyond the building itself

What should a future apartment owner understand from this process – about the structural safety of the building they will live in? What is your main advice to any potential buyer of a residential property?

A person buying an apartment is, in most cases, making the largest financial decision of their life. It is natural to check the price per square metre, the finishes, the orientation, the neighbourhood. It is less natural, for now, to check the structural safety of the building. That is exactly what should change.

My main advice is to ask for documents, not verbal assurances. A serious developer has the Technical Book of the building, monitoring reports produced by an ISC-authorised laboratory, and a signed handover protocol. If these documents cannot be made available – or if the response is evasive – that is a genuine warning sign, regardless of how attractive the offer appears.

Concretely, an informed buyer should ask:

• Was the building monitored structurally and geotechnically during the execution phase?
• Who carried out that monitoring, and do they hold an ISC laboratory authorisation?
• Is there an active monitoring programme for the operational phase?

Beyond the documents, there are also things a buyer can observe directly. A door that does not close properly, repeated cracks at the same level or in the same zones, recurring moisture in common spaces – these are not necessarily minor finishing problems. They can be signals of structural movement that merit investigation.

Residential property is a long-term investment. The structural safety of the building is part of the value of that investment. The more buyers ask these questions, the more pressure the industry will feel to move in the right direction.

Sixense Romania uses the Beyond Monitoring platform to give building owners and managers real-time access to structural data, automated alerts, and a documented history of building behaviour – from construction to long-term operation. If you are involved in a residential project and want to understand what responsible monitoring construction sites looks like in practice, contact the Sixense România team.