---
id: KB-CN-004
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/construction/property-development-end-to-end
idioma: en
categoria: sector-construccion
subcategoria: promocion
audiencia: usuario
nivel: avanzado
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-CS-016, KB-CN-001]
citadoPor: [KB-CN-006, KB-CN-017]
---

# A development, from land purchase to handover

_Two or three years, many actors, and documentation that outlives all of them._

**Responde a:** property development documentation · developer building file · housing handover documentation · new build warranty documentation

A development lasts two or three years and passes through designers, contractors, subcontractors, sales agents, buyers and finally a residents' association. Almost nobody is there from start to finish — except the documentation, which has to outlive all of them.

## The four phases and what accumulates in each

| Phase | What documentation | Who will ask for it later |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Land and permits | Title, permits, conditions | The buyer, the bank, the association |
| Design and contracting | Design, contracts, insurance | The insurer if there is a claim |
| Construction | Subcontractors, materials, controls | Whoever claims a defect |
| Handover | Building file, certificates, warranties | Each buyer, for years |

> [!IMPORTANT]
> The fourth column changes how everything before it is stored. None of this is filed for you: it is filed for someone who will ask for it in three, five or ten years, when whoever assembled it has left the company.

## What gets lost most

**En corto**

- Phase one material, because it seems irrelevant once building starts.
- Material certificates, which arrive piecemeal over months.
- And what was handed to each buyer, poorly remembered three years on.

> [!WARNING]
> Handing over the building file without a signed receipt is the error that reappears most: three years later a buyer says they never received it, and without a receipt the argument has no way out.

## What must be answerable years later

Who executed each part, what material was used, what was handed to whom and when warranties started running. All four are answered with dates or not at all, and all four arrive when nobody remembers.

> [!NOTE]
> If you run several developments, building them as one process makes the third cost a fraction. What changes is the land and the buyers; the documentary skeleton, little.

**Can I give the residents' association access at the end?**

Yes, scoped to what belongs to them as owners.

**And the contractor during the works?**

Scoped to their part and with an end date.

**How long must it be kept?**

New-build warranty periods are long; confirm with your adviser.

## Ejemplos

**A developer receives a claim three years on and cannot find the certificate for the material used.**

- Builds the next development as a process, with certificates linked to each work package

→ The next claim is answered within the hour instead of absorbed for lack of proof.

**The development advances and each stage files its papers separately.**

- Uses one file per development

→ There is one picture from start to finish.

**At handover, documentation from the construction stage is missing.**

- Requests as the event happens

→ Handover does not uncover months-old gaps.

**Each trade delivers whenever they remember.**

- Requests and chases automatically

→ The final month goes on reviewing.

**Buyers ask and there is no file per home.**

- Also organises by unit

→ You answer the way people ask.

**Years later a warranty claim arrives.**

- Keeps the file beyond handover

→ The warranty period is faced with the record.