Demolition Orders: Confirmatory Acts of Stop-Work Orders?

Abstract

I. Where a municipal council resolved, on 10-2-86, to order the suspension of construction works on a residential house — for which a licence had been granted by resolution of 18-12-85, subject to conditions, one of which (concerning alignment) was not observed — such decision does not constitute a revocatory act of the earlier resolution.

II. If, subsequently, the same council adopted two further resolutions — one on 17-2-86, ratifying the suspension ordered on 10-2-86, and another on 10-3-86, ordering the demolition of the building within five days for failure to comply with the suspension — these latter resolutions are nothing more than confirmatory acts of the resolution of 10-2-86 which had ordered the suspension, and are therefore not open to judicial challenge.

III. The resolution of 10-2-86 is not vitiated by illegality, since it was based on the applicant’s failure to comply with the condition imposed by the initial resolution of 18-12-85, which had become legally binding and which could not be disregarded, particularly in respect of the new alignment to be carried out by the council’s topography services, which never took place.

IV. The judgment of the Administrative and Fiscal Court which so decided is not open to criticism and must therefore be upheld.