Dilapidations is the UK name for a tenant’s liability at the end of a lease for the gap between the condition the premises are in and the condition the lease requires them to be handed back in. Slovak law has no institution under that name and no formal schedule as a procedural step. The same money is settled by three things instead: what the lease says about the return condition, the default rules in sections 667, 682 and 683 of the Civil Code and section 13 of Act 116/1990 Zb., and a six month cut-off that extinguishes the landlord’s claim for damage once the keys are back.
Where the word comes from
The term is English property practice. In a UK commercial lease the tenant covenants to repair, to decorate and often to remove its alterations. Towards the end of the term the landlord’s surveyor prepares a schedule listing every breach, item by item, with a cost against each. That schedule is the claim. It can be served during the term as an interim schedule or at the end as a terminal one.
English law also caps the result. Section 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 provides that damages for breach of a covenant to keep or put premises in repair shall in no case exceed the amount by which the value of the reversion is diminished by the breach. A landlord who is about to redevelop the building therefore recovers little, whatever the schedule says. The word travels with international occupiers and appears in heads of terms drafted by UK and Irish advisers for buildings in Bratislava, Nitra and Kosice. What does not travel is the surrounding machinery. Slovak law has no priced schedule, no statutory cap by reference to the reversion, and no case law built on either.
What Slovak law requires at handback
The starting point is the Civil Code. Section 663 defines the lease as the landlord letting the tenant use a thing temporarily for payment. Section 664 puts the first duty on the landlord: hand over the thing in a state fit for the agreed use, or for its usual use where nothing was agreed, and maintain it in that state at the landlord’s own cost.
The return duty sits in section 682. When the lease ends, the tenant must return the thing in the state corresponding to the agreed manner of use. Where the manner of use was not expressly agreed, the standard is the state in which the tenant took it over, with regard to ordinary wear and tear. For non-residential premises there is a parallel rule. Section 13 of Act 116/1990 Zb. on the lease and sublease of non-residential premises, in the version in force since 1 July 2004, says that unless otherwise agreed the tenant must return the premises on termination in the state in which it took them over, having regard to ordinary wear and tear.
Read the opening words of that section again. Both rules are defaults. They apply only where the lease is silent, and a Slovak industrial lease is rarely silent. The document decides, and the statutory standard is the fallback.
Alterations and who pays to take them out
Fit-out is the part of the bill that gets argued. Section 667(1) of the Civil Code lets the tenant make changes to the thing only with the landlord’s consent. The tenant may claim the cost of those changes only where the landlord undertook to bear it. Where the landlord consented but gave no such undertaking, the tenant may claim after the lease ends the amount by which the value of the thing increased, reduced by the depreciation of the works through use in the meantime.
Section 667(2) supplies the sanction that matters at handover. Where the tenant made changes without consent, the tenant must restore the thing to its original state at its own cost after the lease ends. If the works threaten the landlord with significant damage while they are being carried out, the landlord may withdraw from the contract instead. The practical consequence is that the consent trail is the document that decides the bill. A signed landlord approval for a mezzanine, a cold store or a resin floor is the difference between a claim for removal and a claim for added value. Who may write those installations off against tax while the lease is still running is a separate question, and we work through it in our post on fit-out depreciation in Slovakia. Reinstatement clauses in the lease usually go further than the statute and name the items to be stripped out, which is why they are negotiated line by line.
The six month clock
Slovak law adds a deadline that surprises landlords used to English practice. Section 683(1) of the Civil Code makes the tenant liable where the leased thing was damaged or excessively worn as a result of misuse, including damage caused by people the tenant allowed access. The tenant does not answer for chance.
Section 683(2) then closes the window. Compensation may be claimed only within six months of the return of the leased thing. Otherwise the right lapses. That is a preclusive period, not a limitation period: the right ceases to exist rather than becoming merely unenforceable, so it cannot be revived by a later admission. The contrast is stark. The general limitation period in section 101 of the Civil Code is three years, and for commercial obligations section 397 of the Commercial Code sets four years, a regime the parties cannot contract out of because section 263(1) lists sections 386 to 408 as mandatory.
The clock starts at handback, not at the date the landlord finishes pricing the works. A landlord who spends the first quarter collecting quotations has used half the window before the first letter goes out.
Dilapidations in a Slovak warehouse
In an industrial building the argument is rarely about decoration. It runs on the floor slab, where racking base plates, saw cuts and spalled joints show years of forklift traffic. It runs on dock levellers, sectional doors and buffers. It runs on services the tenant altered: sprinkler heads moved for a new racking layout, extra lighting circuits, compressor lines, roof penetrations for photovoltaic panels or air handling units. Mezzanine decks, cold store panels and resin coatings are the large items, and yard surfacing and facade branding close the list.
The recurring problem is evidence rather than law. Where the standard is the state in which the premises were taken over, somebody has to prove that state. Without a schedule of condition or a handover protocol signed at the start, the baseline is one party’s assertion against the other’s, and photographs taken on move-in day become the most valuable file in the building manual. The second recurring argument is ordinary wear and tear, which the statute protects but does not define. A ten year old picking aisle is not a new one, and the landlord is not entitled to be put in a better position than the passage of time would have left it. Landlords normally look first to the rent deposit or the bank guarantee, but the six month rule still governs the claim that sits behind the security.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Slovak law know the term dilapidations?
No. It is a term of English property practice and appears in no Slovak statute. The same commercial question is answered by the lease, by sections 667, 682 and 683 of the Civil Code and, for non-residential premises, by section 13 of Act 116/1990 Zb.
What is the return standard if the lease says nothing?
The state in which the tenant took the premises over, with regard to ordinary wear and tear. Where the parties expressly agreed a manner of use, section 682 measures the return condition against that agreed use instead.
Who pays to remove the tenant’s fit-out?
It depends on consent. Where the landlord consented to the works, the tenant may even be able to claim the increase in value under section 667(1). Where the tenant altered the building without consent, section 667(2) puts the cost of restoring the original state on the tenant.
How long does the landlord have to bring a claim?
Six months from the return of the premises for damage and excessive wear under section 683(2), after which the right lapses. Other contractual claims between businesses follow the four year period in section 397 of the Commercial Code.
Is a schedule of condition compulsory?
No. It is optional and it is also the cheapest insurance in the transaction, because it fixes the baseline that the statutory standard refers back to before anyone has an incentive to remember it differently.