It is ok if you don't change anything (or nothing significant) between version 1 and 2. But then, why would you rewrite from scratch ? In any case, if you use a different team to rewrite your application, you just lost the biggest value of the previous team: experience solving that problem the first time. No amount of documentation can really make up for the difference . The source (with doc) of a software is a compiled version of business/technical knowledge of the team that developed it and not really that good as a guide to the next team.