10 year Building Guarantee

[Cerise]

Unless they are going to make it illegal to restore your own house, it sounds like a load of unworkable rubbish to me.    Even if you have a guarantee, if the firm who did your renovations no longer exist by the time you sell up who would pay up - the insurance?  What is renovation?  Is it a ruin which has been completely rebuilt or is it an older house which has had plumbing/rewiring etc done.  Who is going to decide.  If it is things which need no planning permission what happens after 12, 14 years?  As Nick says - you would always have needed a guarantee for work done by artisans.  However, having seen some of it, an inspection before a guarantee certificate was issued might be more to the point!  Just because someone has insurance doesn't make him a good tradesman.   I take the point that he may have to be registered, but often wonder when, some of the 50 year old guys last went on any sort of refresher course.  None of that seems to be compulsory here, despite otherwise stringent registration procedures.

[Will]

The other thing people tend to forget is that France is full of unworkable and /or contradictory rules and guidelines. You can take the British attitude and worry about them, or the French approach and just ignore them.

[Monika]

I wonder if this copy of the Artisan's insurance is an actual 10 year guarantee which would be acceptable by the notaire for the sale of a renovation project, perhaps it is just to insure against accidents on the building site and things going wrong during the build? I have just sent an e-mail to our Project Manager/Builder to ask him, he seems to know the French laws well and I will let you know what he said.

But Will you are so right with both your postings, doom and gloom stories sell and yes, why worry?