Brno - Buildings offices' jurisdiction includes solving litigations over how much sunlight a flat should have.

And if developers try to build in vacancies in big cities, the impact of the new buildings on transmitting daily light has to be evaluated in accordance with town halls' approved and future development and regulation plans concerning these localities.

This is the verdict of the Supreme Administrative Court in the litigation of Prague town hall and the citizens that do not like the new building built in one of the vacancies of Prague 7.

Will you lose sunlight?

The people were afraid that the building will outshine their flats and they will not have enough light.

However, the town hall neither suspended the building permission proceedings nor referred the litigation participants to a court.

The town hall claims the construction was actually filling a vacancy and the initial state reconstruction, not a brand new project that would outshine the neighbouring houses.

Prague City Court agreed with the claimants and dismissed the verdict of the town hall's officers. According to the court, a sun exposure and daily sky component study should have been made during the proceedings upon the basis of which it would be decided if the new house outshines those people's homes.

However, the  Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the Prague City Court verdict on the basis of Prague town hall's complaint.

The Supreme Administrative Court Senate lead by Judge Lenka Matyášová admitted that the construction will outshine the neighbouring houses, but nevertheless stated that the town hall proceeded correctly.

"If the authorities evaluated the outshine impact on the basis of a comparison with the state of things in a normal continual development, i.e. compared the development's elevation level, the ground dimensions, this way of rationale is sufficient," the judges stated.

In their opinion, the complaint concerning the outshine is in the jurisdiction of the building office. "This office decides on it in accordance with its jurisdiction and with the law," the judges stated.

Frequent disputes over light

This litigation over outshine is not unique. Within the past twelve months only, the Supreme Administrative Court dealt with six litigations of neighbours disputing over how much sunlight they will have in their flats or houses.

Such disputes were also solved in Brno and in Hutisko - Solanec municipality, Wallachia. In all these cases, the cause of the disputes was new development close to older houses.

According to the law, all residential rooms must have enough sunlight, but also protection from sun glare must be ensured.

"All flats must have enough sunlight. A flat has enough sunlight if the total of the floor areas in sunlit rooms equals at least one third of the flat's total area," the law says.