Comment by wat10000

3 days ago

If I contract with a construction company to build a house, and they can’t get permits because the local government turned anti-housing, would that be force majeure and allow the construction company to get out of the contract without big penalties? (Actual question here, not rhetorical.)

This is closer to you got a permit and then it got revoked for no reason under your control.

  • Except without the "getting the permit" part. A promise of a permit is not a permit. Try filing one at city hall and see how it goes.

    • It's not that simple though.

      It's not like you get the permit before you have even bought the land and designed the plans/architecture/engineering for the data center.

      You have to do all of that first, and only once all of that is done, can you submit for a permit.

      Which can take not just months, but maybe even a year (or more).

      So the situation is, regulation changed during the planning phase. So what do you do now? You obviously can't deliver on a contract that would cause you to break new laws/regulations - that didn't exist when you started all of this.

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