Insurance: the ten-year builder's guarantee, a fragile protection

Discovering major defects and realizing that the company's ten-year insurance doesn't apply: this is what happened to Alban Pichard, who began a major renovation of a house in Upper Normandy.

For Mr. Pichard, whose construction site has been completely shut down for several months, the disappointment is serious. "I realized that the ten-year insurance of the company, which was supposed to cover structural problems, only worked from the time of the site's acceptance and it was interrupted before the work was completed," regrets Mr. Pichard, who has initiated legal proceedings to try to resolve the situation.

Ten-year insurance is mandatory for all construction professionals in France to cover damage that compromises the strength of the building and/or renders it unfit for its intended purpose for ten years. For example, a house that cannot be inhabited due to water infiltration falls within the scope of ten-year insurance.

The issue is more complex when it comes to elements added to the house that are not strictly part of the work, such as a heat pump, an insert or even solar panels. Until now, following a 2017 case law , the courts considered that the ten-year guarantee covered the damage caused by these elements. But in a reversal of case law, on March 21, 2024, the Third Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation ruled that this was no longer the case.

In this case, the owners of a house had an insert installed in their fireplace and a fire broke out. Believing that the insert was responsible for the damage, the owners sued the company and its insurer for compensation.

"The Court now considers that equipment elements which do not in themselves constitute a work are not covered by the ten-year guarantee (...) , whatever the degree of seriousness of the damage, but by contractual liability under common law, not subject to compulsory insurance," indicates the order of architects, which commented on the decision of the Court of Cassation. The project owner (the person who orders and pays for the work) will therefore have to provide proof of a fault committed by the contractor and will only be able to incur this liability within the period of five years instead of ten years.

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