Prazos de garantia sob o prisma técnico de engenharia e sua relação com a causalidade dos vícios construtivos no subsídio à tomada de decisão jurídica

Abstract

The growth of litigation concerning building pathologies highlights the need for an interdisciplinary approach integrating engineering and law. This article presents a technical legal analysis of the concepts of construction defect and warranty period, aiming to harmonize their meanings in technical and legal contexts and to examine their relationship with failure causation in order to support consistent judicial decisions. The study is grounded in ABNT standards, particularly NBR 13752, 15575, and 17170, understood as expressions of the best available science. It demonstrates that construction defects arising from noncompliance in design, materials, or execution tend to manifest during the technical warranty period. Based on reliability engineering principles and the bathtub curve model, it is argued that failures occurring after the end of the warranty period generally show low technical plausibility as construction defects, being more consistent with lack of maintenance, improper use, third party actions, or fortuitous events. The study also distinguishes between warranty period and service life.