The Legal 500

In November 2007, Bertil Bengtsson was appointed to make an examination concerning the Consumer Services Act. In the memorandum he presented in conjunction with that examination, he concluded that the Consumer Services Act should not contain any rules on lease of movable property since lease of movable property does not legally constitute a service.

edited by altius and tiberghien - belgium

Improved judicial protection in procurement matters

The Belgian Act of 23 December 2009 has considerably improved judicial protection in procurement matters. It is interesting to follow the case law resulting from this Act. However, several procedural issues remain.

ALTIUS and Tiberghien have published the third edition of the Real Estate Gazette. Under the direction of Lieven Peeters, William Timmermans and Danny Stas, lawyers from both law firms have contributed to this joint initiative. Among the ALTIUS authors: Lieven Peeters, William Timmermans, Suzy Miller, Tim Bruyninckx, Charlotte Boumal and Jolijn Weytjens.

In the slipstream of the general Belgian, European and global economies, 2010 will be qualified as a year of slow and prudent transition for Belgium’s real estate market. After a correction process in 2008-2009, the Belgian real estate market is showing signs of recovery, and the appetite for investments appears to be increasing. However, the decrease in prices for Belgian real estate and the weakened office rent market do slow down the activity on the real estate financing market.   

Joint ventures: Must foreign designers or contractors enter into a joint venture with a local contractor to design, build and be paid for their work? Does the law require that the local contractor control the joint venture?

Order no. 1203/927/103 (published in the Official Gazette no. 289/2010) amending and supplementing the Methodological Norms for the application of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 18/2009 regarding the increase of the energetic performance of dwellings, approved by Order no.

Companies (listed and unlisted) spinning off real estate at Belgian or at both Belgian and European level is common practice. In comparison to the U.S. market, the trend is only just in its early stages here.