VEFA

Non-compliance of a dwelling: you have one year to take legal action!

Publié le null - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

In the context of a sale in the future state of completion (VEFA), the purchaser may express reservations to the delivery of the dwelling when it finds that it is not in conformity with the contract of sale. The buyer has one year to go to court if the manufacturer does not correct the defects. This is what the Court of Cassation has just recalled in the judgment delivered on 19 January 2022.

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Image 1Crédits: © Jo Ann Snover - stock.adobe.com

A business sells a building in the future state of completion. When the building is delivered in October 2010, the buyer issues reservations because the ceilings are not up to the level stipulated in the sales contract.

The company does not adjust the height of the ceilings and in January 2015, the buyer assigns it to demolition-reconstruction of the building and damages.

The Court of Appeal declared that its claims were inadmissible on the grounds of apparent construction defects and non-compliance because they were late.

Indeed, barely foreclosurethe purchaser must bring the matter before the court within one year of the end of the warranty for defects and apparent defects of conformity. However, the seller no longer has this guarantee obligation one month after the acquisition of the apartment by its buyer.

The guarantee action introduced more than 4 years after the delivery of the dwelling comes too late.

The Court of Cassation upholds that judgment and dismisses the appeal.

Agenda