Ten-year liability is a guarantee against hidden defects which falls within a test period referred to in article 1792-4-1 of the civil code. It follows that, for it to apply, the work carried out must be affected by a disorder which, at the same time, was not apparent on the day of reception and appears within ten years from this receipt. This judgment concerns these two classic questions regarding an alleged disorder relating to the domestic hot water network.
It settles, firstly, the question of the effect of reception (first means in its first two branches)
In the context of a light control and taking refuge behind the sovereign assessment of the judges on the merits, the Court of Cassation recalls the reasoning on which the Court of Appeal relies to admit the hidden nature of the disorder for the master of work: “the project owners, who were not construction professionals, were unable to detect, during acceptance, the disorder due to the abnormal length of the piping, even though its concrete manifestation, namely an abnormally long time to obtain hot water, could have been detected on the day of receipt.”
The question here concerns the apparent nature of the disorder and the purging effect produced by the unreserved reception of an apparent disorder. If reception is both a unilateral act preserving a right through the expression of a reservation and an act extinguishing the right in the absence of such a reservation, it is in fact on the condition that the disorder or non-compliance is apparent upon receipt.
It is this character that was discussed. We know that it is only in the person of the project owner that we should place ourselves in order to assess this condition. We also emphasize that in this case, it is not in the person of the purchasers that we should place ourselves…
2023-10-18 22:17:22
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