Is a French Property Really ‘Sold as Seen’? Hidden Defects Explained

IS MY PROPERTY ‘SOLD AS SEEN’?

Once I’ve sold my house in France, isn’t it ‘sold as seen’? How can I protect myself from unpleasant surprises – or legal claims – after completion?

SARAH BRIGHT of Bright Avocats responds (brightavocats.com): Ah yes, the famous ‘sold as seen’ idea. I wish I had a euro for every time a seller has said that to me, usually with great confidence and occasionally with a raised eyebrow. Sadly, French law does not quite share this optimism.

In theory, buyers are expected to inspect carefully, ask questions – and if they are really curious – commission surveys (alongside diagnostics provided by the seller), in order to reassure themselves before signing. In practice, however, I see an increasing number of post-sale claims, often months or even years later, alleging that something was wrong with the property and that the seller must have known about it. Welcome to the world of vices cachés and imaginative hindsight.

So, what’s actually going wrong? The problem is not that most buyers are dishonest – far from it. The problem is that once the sale is completed, the narrative changes. A small damp patch becomes ‘a serious structural issue’. A hairline crack becomes ‘evidence of subsidence’. And suddenly the seller is asked to explain, justify, or compensate. At that point, the property no longer belongs to you, memories are selective, and the burden of proof becomes…uncomfortable.

Sellers may be more exposed than they think. French courts take allegations of hidden defects seriously. If a buyer can persuade a judge that a defect existed before the sale and was not disclosed, the seller may face compensation – even if they genuinely believed the issue was minor or insignificant. And no, saying “it was obvious” is not always enough. What seems glaringly obvious to someone who has lived in a house for 10 years is not necessarily obvious to someone who visited it twice with an estate agent and rose-tinted glasses.

Enter the bailiff’s constat (and no, this isn’t overkill). One increasingly sensible – and still under-used – solution is to commission a ‘constat d’huissier’ before the sale. This involves a bailiff visiting the property and recording, in a neutral and factual way, its visible condition on a given date. No opinions. No diagnoses. Just what is there, what is visible, and what is not.

If a dispute arises later, this document becomes a rather formidable ally. Judges like bailiffs. They like contemporaneous evidence. They like photographs taken before tempers, lawyers and renovation works get involved. Bailiffs are legal professionals and their constat is seen as reliable and unbiased evidence by the court.“But won’t this highlight defects?” you might ask, and indeed, this is the question I hear most often.

My answer is always the same: honest defects are not the problem – disputed defects are. A constat does not create issues; it fixes reality in time. It can demonstrate that a crack was visible (and therefore not hidden), that damp was localised, or that a particular problem simply did not exist at the time of sale. Used properly, it is not a weapon against the buyer, but a shield for the seller.

More lawyers are quietly recommending this now because we are seeing more litigation. More buyers encouraged to “see what they can get” after completion. Because a few hundred euros spent before the sale can save many thousands, and several sleepless nights, afterwards. Think of it as legal insurance for people who prefer not to discover, two years later, that their perfectly respectable house has apparently always been on the brink of collapse.

Selling smartly is not about mistrust. It’s about foresight. And after nearly 30 years of watching what can go wrong, foresight is something I wholeheartedly recommend.