Defects Affecting Equipment Elements Added To An Existing Construction No Longer Fall Under The Ten-Year Warranty As Long As They Do Not Constitute A Structure Themselves

Court of Cassation, 3rd Civil Chamber, March 21, 2024, No. 22-16.694

In a ruling issued on March 21, 2024, the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation made a reversal in jurisprudence concerning the warranty for malfunctions of equipment elements installed as replacements or additions to an existing structure.

In this case, a fireplace insert was installed in an existing chimney in a house. A fire broke out, destroying the house and everything in it. The homeowners, believing the fire was caused by the installation of the insert, sued (along with their insurer) the company that carried out the work and its insurer, who were jointly ordered to pay various sums for the damages.

They then filed an appeal to the Court of Cassation, arguing that the installation of a fireplace inserts into a chimney, which does not involve masonry work or affect the main structure of the building, does not constitute a structure and therefore such an insert does not fall under the ten-year warranty for builders.

In its ruling, the Court of Cassation reversed its previous jurisprudence, citing Articles 1792, 1792-2, and 1793-3 of the Civil Code, and stated: "If the equipment elements installed as replacements or additions to an existing structure do not constitute a structure themselves, they fall under neither the ten-year warranty nor the biennial warranty of good functioning."

The Court of Cassation thus decided to abandon the jurisprudence established since 2017, which had set the principle that defects affecting equipment elements, whether separable or not, original or added to an existing structure, fell under the ten-year liability when they rendered the structure as a whole unfit for its intended use.

The 2017 position had two main objectives:

1. Simplification, by no longer distinguishing whether the equipment element was original or merely added to the existing structure, as long as the damage affected the structure's suitability for its intended use;
2. Protection of property owners, by extending the ten-year warranty to a greater number of damages, especially in a context where renovation and improvement works on existing constructions are frequent.

In its reversal ruling, the Court noted that the 2017 solution had not achieved its intended objectives, as installers of equipment elements potentially falling under the ten-year warranty had not increasingly subscribed to the mandatory builders' insurance.

The Court now rules that if the equipment elements installed as replacements or additions to an existing structure do not constitute a structure themselves, they fall under neither the ten-year warranty nor the biennial warranty of good functioning, "regardless of the severity of the defects, but under common law contractual liability, which is not subject to mandatory builders' insurance."

This jurisprudence is immediately applicable and intended to apply to ongoing cases. It should be noted, however, that this new interpretation reduces the scope of the ten-year warranty in favor of common law contractual liability, which is almost always subject to limitations through restrictive liability clauses.

Therefore, particular attention should be paid to the contractual guarantees provided by equipment manufacturers when they are installed in a house or building.