Who Is Liable For Construction Defects

Construction defects rarely appear while the contractor is still on site. Most surface months after handover, when most of the contract price has already been paid, and by then the contractor, the designer and the supervision consultant can each point to someone else. Vietnamese law allocates liability for construction defects by cause, so each party answers for its own part of the work, and the investor’s sign-off at handover releases none of them.

Those rules were rewritten on 1 July 2026, when the Construction Law 2025 (Law 135/2025/QH15) and Decree 207/2026/ND-CP on quality management, warranty and maintenance took effect, replacing the 2014 law and Decree 06/2021. Much of the guidance still circulating online cites the old framework.