Perit

Perit is the Maltese term for a warranted architect and civil engineer. The distinction matters: in many countries architecture and civil engineering are two separate professions with two separate qualifications. In Malta they are one. A perit is trained and warranted to do both — the design of the building and the engineering of the structure that holds it up.

Warranted, not merely qualified. The profession is regulated under the Periti Act (Chapter 390 of the Laws of Malta), which establishes the Kamra tal-Periti as the professional body and creates the Periti Warranting Board. A degree is not enough: after the academic qualification comes a period of practical traineeship, then examination by the Warranting Board. Only on passing is a candidate admitted to the Warrant of Perit and permitted to carry out the services the law reserves to the profession.

Which gives buyers something concrete. The Warranting Board maintains and publishes the list of warranted professionals, and it is public and free to search at peritiwarrant.gov.mt. If you are told a perit was involved, you can check.

What a perit does when you buy

The perit is the professional who examines the building itself. That is a different job from the notary's, and the division is clean: as Dr. Laferla puts it, it isn't the notary who checks a property's permits — the notary handles title and the searches, and the building is the perit's territory.

In a typical purchase that engagement happens after the Konvenju is signed: the buyer's own perit inspects the property to confirm it is structurally sound and covered by the necessary planning permits, and where something is wrong the seller is bound to put it right before the final deed.

But a perit's read of a building starts long before that. Asked what he sees that a buyer misses, Perit Matthew Mercieca names age, condition and the gap to finish — a judgement formed in the first thirty seconds, and the reason it is worth asking who the perit was at a viewing, long before you have engaged one yourself.

Sources

• Periti Act, Chapter 390 of the Laws of Malta — regulation of the profession; establishment of the Kamra tal-Periti and the Periti Warranting Board
• Kamra tal-Periti — the warrant of perit: academic qualification, traineeship, examination by the Warranting Board
• Periti Warranting Board — peritiwarrant.gov.mt, the public register of warranted periti
• Perit Matthew James Mercieca — Yitaku Asks video (Architect Series, Cluster 1)
• Dr. Michael Laferla — Yitaku Asks video (the notary handles title and searches; the building is the architect's role)