SBCA has declared 588 buildings in Karachi dangerous, with 59 categorised as extremely hazardous and demolition approved for 39 (Dawn, 2026). Most owners on that list did not wake up one day to a surprise. The process that gets a building onto it, and what happens after, is set out in law, and almost nobody reads it until a notice is already in hand. This guide covers the legal mechanism: how a building gets declared dangerous, what SBCA can actually do about it, what an owner can do in response, and what it costs to ignore.
If your building has already been assessed as structurally compromised and you need it repaired rather than explained, our structural repair and rehabilitation service covers engineer-led assessment, column jacketing and rehabilitation directly. This page covers the process leading up to that decision.
The Legal Basis: Sections 11 and 14
SBCA's authority to act against a dangerous structure comes from the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979. Two provisions do the work.
Section 11 gives the Authority general power to order the demolition of a building, or part of one, where it has been constructed or is being constructed in contravention of a sanctioned plan or without sanction at all.
Section 14 is the one that applies to dangerous and dilapidated structures specifically, regardless of whether the original construction was ever authorised. It gives the Authority grounds to act against a building on the basis of its current physical condition: instability, structural deterioration, and risk to occupants or the public, independent of the building's approval history. A building can be entirely legal, fully sanctioned decades ago, and still be ordered demolished under Section 14 if its structural condition has deteriorated to the point of danger.
This distinction matters because owners often assume a completion certificate or an old approved plan protects them from a dangerous-building order. It does not. Section 14 looks at what the building is now, not what it was approved as.
How a Building Gets Declared Dangerous
The process typically follows this sequence, though the specific documentation and inspection detail can vary by case:
1. Referral or inspection. A building comes to SBCA's attention through a complaint, a routine inspection, or visible signs of distress, cracking, settlement, or spalling that neighbours or passersby report.
2. Structural assessment. SBCA's technical staff, or an engineer engaged for the purpose, assesses the structure's condition against recognised safety criteria: foundation settlement, column and beam integrity, corrosion of reinforcement, and load-bearing capacity relative to current use.
3. Formal notice. Where the assessment supports it, SBCA issues a notice to the owner, setting out the finding and the required action, which can range from immediate vacation to repair within a specified period to a demolition order for the whole or an unsafe part of the structure.
4. Owner's response window. The owner is generally given an opportunity to respond, commission an independent structural assessment, and propose remedial work rather than demolition, where remedial work is technically viable.
5. Enforcement. Where the notice is not complied with, SBCA can proceed with demolition itself. Under Section 14, where the Authority carries out the demolition, the cost of that demolition is recoverable from the owner as arrears of land revenue, which is one of the more consequential lines in the Ordinance: it is not a civil debt an owner can simply decline to pay, it is collected the way overdue land revenue is collected.
Why Buildings Reach This Point
The 588-building figure did not accumulate from sudden failures. It accumulated the way most structural problems in Karachi do: slowly, and from causes that are visible years before a formal notice arrives.
Water ingress left unaddressed. Roof and terrace waterproofing that fails and is patched rather than stripped and redone lets water reach reinforcement steel over years, corroding it from within long before any surface crack appears.
Coastal and high-humidity exposure. In areas with sustained salt-laden air, chloride ingress into concrete accelerates reinforcement corrosion. Visible spalling on a column or soffit face typically understates how far the corrosion has already progressed.
Additions beyond original design capacity. A floor added without a structural engineer confirming the existing foundation and columns could carry the extra load is one of the more common causes of the settlement and cracking that eventually trigger an inspection.
Deferred maintenance on ageing stock. Karachi has a large volume of housing from the 1960s through 1980s built to the standards and material quality of its period. Left unmaintained for decades, ordinary ageing becomes a structural safety question rather than a cosmetic one.
None of these are things that appear overnight. A building rarely goes from sound to dangerous in the interval between two inspections; the deterioration is visible, and often visibly ignored, for years before the classification becomes official.
What You Can Actually Do, and What It Costs
Get an independent structural assessment before responding to a notice. SBCA's finding is not necessarily the final word on what the building needs. An independent structural engineer's assessment can confirm the extent of the problem and, critically, whether repair and rehabilitation is a technically viable alternative to demolition. This is the single most important step, and it is the one most owners skip out of the shock of receiving a notice.
Understand that repair is often available where deterioration, not original defect, is the cause. Column jacketing, reinforcement replacement, and foundation underpinning can restore structural capacity in many cases where the deterioration is corrosion- or settlement-driven rather than a fundamental design failure. This is not true in every case; some structures genuinely cannot be economically or safely rehabilitated, and an honest engineer will tell you that rather than take on unrepairable work.
Do not wait for the notice to act. If you can see the signs described above on your own property, cracking that is widening rather than stable, spalling that exposes reinforcement, doors and windows that no longer close square, a formal assessment now costs a fraction of what a demolition notice and forced compliance costs later, and it puts you in control of the repair-versus-demolish decision instead of a deadline. In plain terms: a professional assessment and report typically runs PKR 30,000 to 80,000, and even a serious repair like strengthening a column runs PKR 40,000 to 90,000 each. Waiting until SBCA forces the issue almost always costs more than either of those.
Understand the cost of ignoring a notice. Beyond the immediate safety risk to occupants, an unresolved dangerous-building notice on a property is a serious problem at any future sale or mortgage application. Buyers' lawyers and bank due-diligence processes check for exactly this. And where SBCA proceeds with demolition itself after non-compliance, the recovered cost lands on the owner regardless of ability to pay, collected as arrears of land revenue.
How Naffees & Sons Handles This
We assess structures against these same criteria before a client is facing a deadline, not after. Where the finding supports rehabilitation, our structural repair work, column jacketing, reinforcement work, foundation strengthening, is engineer-led and documented, precisely because a repair that cannot be defended to a future inspection or a future buyer's lawyer is not a real solution. Full cost ranges and what different repair scopes actually involve are covered on our structural repair and rehabilitation page.
Where a structure genuinely cannot be economically rehabilitated, we handle that outcome honestly too, including the demolition process itself: see our demolition cost guide and our demolition permission rules guide for what that process involves and costs. On rebuild projects following demolition, recoverable material from the old structure is assessed for scrap value and credited against the client's project cost as a genuine financial offset, not reused structurally in the new build.
Frequently Asked Questions
What law gives SBCA the power to declare a building dangerous in Karachi? Section 14 of the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979, gives SBCA authority to act against a structurally unsafe building based on its current condition, independent of whether the original construction was sanctioned. Section 11 separately covers demolition of unauthorised construction.
Can a fully approved, legally built house still be declared dangerous? Yes. Section 14 assesses the building's present physical condition, structural deterioration, instability, corrosion, not its approval history. A completion certificate from decades ago does not protect a structure that has since deteriorated.
What happens if I ignore a dangerous building notice? SBCA can proceed with demolition itself. Where it does, the cost of that demolition is recoverable from the owner as arrears of land revenue, a debt collected in the same manner as unpaid land revenue rather than an ordinary civil claim.
Is demolition the only outcome once a building is assessed as dangerous? No. Depending on the cause and extent of the deterioration, structural rehabilitation, column jacketing, reinforcement replacement, foundation strengthening, can be a technically viable alternative to demolition. Get an independent structural assessment to establish which applies to your building.
How much does structural repair cost compared to demolition and rebuild? As a rough guide, an assessment costs PKR 30,000 to 80,000, patching a crack runs PKR 1,500 to 4,500 per running foot, and strengthening a column runs PKR 40,000 to 90,000 each. A full demolition and rebuild costs far more. The exact number depends entirely on what an engineer finds, which is why the assessment has to come first. Full cost ranges are in our structural repair guide, and rebuild costs after demolition are in our demolition cost guide.
What are the early warning signs I should not ignore? Widening cracks (as opposed to stable hairline cracks), visible spalling that exposes reinforcement steel, doors and windows that no longer close square, and visible settlement or tilt. Any of these on a structure more than a few decades old, or one that has had a floor added without engineering assessment, warrants a professional structural inspection.
Does coastal humidity make dangerous-building risk higher in some Karachi areas? Yes. Sustained salt-laden air accelerates chloride ingress into concrete and corrodes reinforcement steel from within, in properties near the coast. Visible surface damage in these buildings typically understates the underlying condition, which is why a proper assessment rather than a visual check matters more in these areas.
Who pays for an independent structural assessment? The owner commissions and pays for it, but the cost is small relative to what it protects: an assessment that supports rehabilitation instead of demolition, or one that establishes the actual scope of repair needed before a contractor is engaged, either of which typically saves far more than the assessment costs.
Get an Honest Structural Assessment
Naffees & Sons has assessed and repaired structures across Karachi since 1972. If you can see the warning signs on your property, get an engineer-led assessment before a formal notice forces the timeline.
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