During construction, the risk is with the contractor

This principle laid down by the Civil Code does not suffer from exceptions, according to the Court of Cassation, and it is irrelevant that a fault is attributable to one of the companies or that the consequences of the disaster are more or less serious.

In a first case, a house under construction had been destroyed by fire. The customer demanded from the companies the reimbursement of the sums already paid since, according to the civil code, "if the thing perishes, in any way whatsoever, before being delivered, the loss is for the worker" unless that his client was late in taking possession of it.

One of the contractors refused to assume the loss because an expertise in progress was going to determine precisely who was responsible for the loss. In the meantime, the Court of Cassation ruled, this contractor whose work perished before acceptance cannot claim to be paid for work that he is unable to deliver. He must therefore, regardless of any question of liability, return the sums received.

In the second case, a house under construction had been damaged by a storm. The work had not "perished", as the law says, that is to say that it had not been destroyed but had only been damaged, said the builder. The latter therefore refused to take the reparations at his expense. But the judges also found him wrong. No matter the extent of the loss of the work, they said, the builder must bear the cost of the repair work to be able to deliver the house.

(Cass. Civ 3, 25.5.2022, F 21-18.098 and Y 21-15.883).