Guarantee of hidden defects: can it play if the damage took place in a nearby building?

The seller of 3 contiguous buildings, including a dwelling house, is taking legal action after being ordered to compensate the buyer of the dwelling house.

The facts are as follows. The ceiling of the cellar of one of the buildings, supported by beams “in a very advanced state of rust”, collapsed. As a result of this incident, the owners of the neighboring house, which was not damaged, had to leave it for a certain period of time because of preventive shoring work to be carried out in their basement.

Faced with this situation, they turn against the seller in the name of the guarantee of hidden defects.

Can it apply?

Public Service replies:

The civil code thus defines a hidden defect: a defect not apparent at the time of purchase, but already present, making the property unsuitable for the use for which it is intended - or very greatly reducing its use.

In the present case, the seller considered that the guarantee of hidden defects could not apply.

According to him, even if the purchasers were “construction laymen”, they should have suspected that the beams of the neighboring cellar were very damaged since theirs was in the same condition at the time of purchase. It was not a “hidden” defect since the problem was visible.

He also considered that the loss had affected the complainants' neighbors and not their own home. This ground is rejected by the Court of Cassation. It recalls that the ceiling of the cellar “was expected to collapse partially or completely, in the absence of shoring”.

Buyers of a house can therefore be compensated for hidden defects even if it is a neighboring building that has suffered damage, and not their property, decided the Court of Cassation.