For the first year after acceptance, the contractor must put right every defect notified, whether or not it was reserved, with no argument about how serious it is. For two years, separable items of equipment intended to function are covered by the warranty of proper working order. These two warranties are the easiest to invoke, and the most often left unused.
A year in which the seriousness of the defect is irrelevant
The warranty of perfect completion is set out in the second paragraph of article 1792-6 of the Civil Code. The contractor is bound by it for one year from acceptance, and it extends to making good every defect notified by the employer, either by reservations recorded in the acceptance record or by written notification for those revealed after acceptance.
The word every is what gives the provision its force. For twelve months there is no need to argue about the solidity of the works, or their unfitness for purpose, or whether an item of equipment is separable. A door that does not close properly, blistering paint, a failed seal, badly set out tiling: all of it can be claimed, provided it is notified. It is the widest warranty in French construction law, and paradoxically the least used, because employers often wait to see whether the defect gets worse.
Two limits temper that generosity. The warranty binds only the contractor, not the architect or the design office, whose liability is pursued on another basis. And it does not extend to works needed to remedy the effects of normal wear or use, a qualification in the last paragraph of article 1792-6 that serves as a standard defence and succeeds only if the company establishes abnormal use or a failure to maintain.
Notifying in writing, and what that means
The provision requires written notification for defects revealed after acceptance. A phone call, an oral remark to the site manager, a voicemail, do not meet that condition, or at least cannot be proved. A dated email is enough; a recorded delivery letter is better once relations become strained.
The notification must describe the defect identifiably. “Damp problems” is not a useful notification; “damp marks on the lower part of the north wall of bedroom 2, over about two linear metres, appeared on 12 January” is. Dated photographs are worth more than a paragraph. Where several defects appear one after another, each is notified as it arises: nothing requires waiting until the end of the year to send a single list, and that wait creates the risk of notifying out of time.
The question of time deserves to be put plainly. The defect must be notified within the year, but the court action itself is subject to the ordinary limitation applicable to the warranty, which leaves some margin. In practice, an employer who notified within the year and meets a refusal has an interest in not letting the file sleep, if only because the same defects, once the year has passed, will have to clear the seriousness threshold of the decennial warranty or that of proven fault.
What happens when the contractor does not come back
Article 1792-6 sets out precisely how to get out of the deadlock, and the mechanism is too little used. The time needed to carry out the remedial works is fixed by agreement between the employer and the contractor concerned. Failing such agreement, or in the event of non performance within the time fixed, the works may, after a formal demand has gone unanswered, be carried out at the cost and risk of the defaulting contractor. Completion of the required works is recorded by agreement or, failing that, by the court.
Three conditions therefore govern work at the contractor cost and risk: an agreed time or a recorded disagreement, non performance, and a formal demand that produced no effect. An employer who brings in another company without having served a formal demand on the first exposes himself to being met with his own haste, and to recovering nothing. One who follows the sequence can have the remedial works done and claim the cost.
Preserving evidence of the prior state also has to be thought about. Remedial work carried out by a third party erases the defect, and with it the proof. A judicial officer report, or at the very least a dated photographic record and a detailed itemised quotation, stops the defaulting company later disputing the reality of what it was supposed to put right.
The warranty of proper working order: two years for equipment
Article 1792-3 is short: the other items of equipment of the works are covered by a warranty of proper working order lasting at least two years from acceptance. The word other refers to what falls under neither article 1792 nor article 1792-2, that is, in substance, equipment separable from the works.
The duration is a minimum, which allows more favourable terms, common in private contracts and in single house building contracts. It covers malfunction, not the solidity of the works: a roller shutter that stops working, mechanical ventilation no longer delivering its flow rate, a jammed motorised gate, a water heater that no longer heats.
Two exclusions should be known. Article 1792-7 removes from articles 1792, 1792-2, 1792-3 and 1792-4 items of equipment whose exclusive function is to allow a professional activity to be carried on in the works: a workshop production line, the refrigeration plant of a shop, solar modules operated to resell electricity therefore fall outside the two year warranty. And the Third Civil Chamber has held that damage affecting an item not intended to function, added to an existing building, falls exclusively under ordinary contractual liability, whatever its seriousness, floor tiling and plasterboard partitions not being intended to function (Cass. 3e civ., 13 July 2022, no. 19-20.231, reported).
Fitting the three warranties together without losing time
The three warranties do not mechanically exclude one another; they overlap for the first year and then narrow. The useful reflex is to reason from the simplest first.
During the first year, any notified defect falls under the warranty of perfect completion, with no condition as to seriousness, and that is the ground to stand on: the demonstration is minimal and there is a single counterparty, the contractor. Whether the defect reaches the decennial threshold arises only if the company defaults, or has disappeared, because insurance then has to be called on.
Between one and two years, the employer chooses between the warranty of proper working order, if the defect affects separable equipment intended to function, and the decennial warranty, if the works are affected in their solidity or their purpose. Beyond two years only the decennial warranty remains for serious defects, with ordinary contractual liability for damage below that threshold, itself confined to ten years from acceptance by article 1792-4-3.
A word on insurance: the warranty of perfect completion and the warranty of proper working order are not covered by compulsory insurance, and damage to works insurance takes effect, under article L. 242-1 of the Insurance Code, only after the perfect completion period expires. In the first year the employer therefore faces the company, and it alone, apart from the special case of termination after a formal demand provided for in the same text.
The single house contract
An employer who has entered into a single house building contract benefits from more protective contractual machinery, notably on holding back the balance and on clearing reservations. The reflex is to read the contract before writing to the company, because its terms often set out a timetable and penalties the employer does not know he negotiated.
In these projects the delivery guarantee taken out by the builder plays a central role when the company defaults. It does not replace the warranty of perfect completion, but it makes it economically effective, and the guarantor must be brought in at the first sign of difficulty, not once the site has been at a standstill for six months.
Frequently asked questions
Should you wait until the end of the year to draw up the list of defects?
No, and it is the worst method. Each defect is notified as soon as it appears. Waiting risks late notification for defects revealed at the end of the period, and deprives the employer of the argument of repetition when the company does not react.
Does the warranty of perfect completion cover the architect?
No. The provision names the contractor. The liability of the project manager is pursued on contractual ground, for fault, or under the decennial warranty if the defect meets its conditions.
Can a company refuse to put things right by invoking wear and tear?
It can raise it, since article 1792-6 excludes works needed to remedy the effects of normal wear or use. It still has to establish it. Equipment failing after four months of normal use is not a matter of wear, and the argument rebounds on whoever uses it abusively.
What exactly does the warranty of proper working order cover?
Malfunction of separable items of equipment, that is, those that can be removed, dismantled or replaced without damage or removal of material from the works. It does not cover defects that compromise the solidity of the works or render them unfit for their purpose, which fall under the decennial warranty.
Can these warranties be extended by contract?
The warranty of proper working order has a minimum duration of two years and can therefore be extended. The warranty of perfect completion is mandatory in principle and cannot be reduced. Clauses attempting to limit these warranties are deemed unwritten to the extent that they conflict with the statutory provisions.
Do remedial works start a new period running?
Remedial works, where they themselves amount to construction works, may give rise to their own acceptance and their own warranties. It is therefore worth formally accepting the remedial works rather than treating the matter as closed on a simple statement that the job is done.