General Survey of Construction-Related Complaints in Recent Buildings in Spain

Abstract

In Spain the construction sector and specifically the building area, is one of the sectors with the greatest number of complaints coming from the users and clients. Sometimes these complaints are important enough to be taken to court. This study, the first of its kind in the literature, is based on the final rulings of these court cases (involving 1166 buildings) to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively the anomalies, their causes and elements in which they occur. The results show the construction zones with the greatest damage and the most frequent anomalies, which will facilitate all intervening actors in the building process access to the knowledge about the anomalies-prone zones and their future prevention. The most frequent pathological processes, their climatic zone distribution and a prediction tool in function of population are also included in the presentation. Some design and execution procedures are proposed to solve the problems detected.