Cambodia's Defect Liability Period, and Why It Outlives the Sale

Cambodia's Construction Law hands every condominium buyer three numbers at handover: two years, five years, and ten years. Under Article 71, promulgated in November 2019, a contractor must guarantee different parts of a building for those periods, and the clock on each one starts the day the keys change hands. The guarantee applies even where the contract says nothing about it, and any shorter period written into a contract is treated as void.

What the warranty covers

There are three mandatory tiers, sorted by what fails. Electrical, water, and mechanical installations carry a two year guarantee. Exterior walls, windows, doors, and roofs carry five years. Structural work in reinforced concrete or metal carries ten years. These durations are floors, not defaults, so parties may agree in writing to extend them but not to drop below them. A defect that appears before handover is a separate matter, governed by Article 654 of the Civil Code, which requires the work to be delivered without defect in the first place.

A warranty is only as good as its record

Here is the reframe most buyers miss. The defect liability period is the buyer's floor, not the buyer's protection. A statutory warranty is a promise the law makes on the buyer's behalf, and a promise still has to be invoked. Invoking it requires three things the law does not supply: a date, a description, and evidence. All three are created at the handover inspection.

A unit walked carefully at handover, with every defect photographed, listed, and dated before the final signature, produces a record that maps onto Article 71's tiers. A unit accepted on a handshake produces nothing. A warranty is a promise, and a dated, photographed defect notice is a fact. The gap between the two is where most post handover disputes are quietly lost.

Where the leverage sits

The strongest tool a buyer holds at handover is not the warranty clause. It is the payment schedule. Off plan structures in Phnom Penh commonly leave between 10 and 40 percent of the price in the handover tranche, and money not yet paid is far easier to hold than money already paid is to recover. A disciplined buyer treats handover as two events in order: inspection first, payment second, with the punch list closed or its remedy scheduled in writing before the last tranche moves.

Who is liable, and the file that survives

The law spreads responsibility beyond the contractor to the project designer, the certifier, the producers of materials, and jointly the owner and contractor, with exposure generally capped at three years from when a claim may first be made or ten years after the damage, and up to twenty years where materials involve substances hazardous to health. This matters in a market of new towers, because a single project developer company can wind down once a building sells out, and the ten year structural clock frequently outlives it. What survives is the buyer's file.

• Keep the purchase contract, the dated handover report with photographs, and the recorded identities of the contractor and certifier in one place
• Sort any future defect by tier, since a cracked structural member and a failed pump sit on different clocks
• Calendar the ten year structural window, the least visible and most expensive of the three
• On a resale, ask the seller for the original handover record, because the statutory clocks run from that first handover

That last point matters for secondary market buyers. Buying a ready unit does not forfeit this protection. The clocks run from the original handover, so a resale buyer inherits whatever time remains, and the original handover record is part of reading a clean title unit properly.

Cambodia already wrote the buyer a warranty. The buyer supplies the evidence that makes it collectible, and that work happens in the hour before final payment, not in the year after a defect appears. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, and a short, no pressure conversation with an advisor can help you build the file for a specific unit.