The seller’s reports when buying a house in France: what triggers each one, and what none of them checks

A French seller hands over a thick bundle of reports, and it is easy to read it as an inspection of the house, the way a British survey is. It is not. The bundle is a set of separate documents, each triggered by a different fact about the property and each valid for a different length of time. This guide sorts them by trigger and shows what none of them looks at.

When you buy a house in France, the seller must provide a set of reports whose contents depend on the house’s age, installations, location and energy rating. Each report has its own validity period. Going by the official list, none of them is an inspection of the structure, the roof covering or damp.

The seller’s pack at a glance

The official list for a house has about a dozen items, but a given sale needs only those whose trigger applies. The government portal service-public.fr says the reports are grouped in a technical file, the dossier de diagnostic technique, which the seller attaches to the preliminary sale contract or to the deed of sale.

Checked against service-public.fr pages F10798 (verified by the portal on 7 March 2025), F742 (6 December 2024), F37110 and F12239 (1 January 2025) and F16096 (1 January 2026), and against ANIL, all retrieved in September 2026. ANIL’s list also includes a certificate for wood-burning heating appliances where one is required and, since 1 July 2022, a report on the connection to the public sewer in some communes listed by a decree of 31 January 2022, including Paris. Rules for flats in co-ownership differ in places.

What the house’s age triggers: 1 January 1949 and 1 July 1997

Two dates decide whether lead and asbestos reports are needed. Service-public.fr lists a lead exposure report for a house built before 1 January 1949, and an asbestos report where the building permit was issued before 1 July 1997 (retrieved September 2026). For asbestos, the permit date counts, not the year the house was finished.

The asbestos date is easy to confuse with the ban. A decree of 24 December 1996 banned the manufacture, processing, sale and import of asbestos in France with effect from 1 January 1997, subject to temporary exceptions for certain existing materials containing chrysotile fibre. The report threshold of 1 July 1997 is a separate rule.

Finding asbestos does not end the matter. Service-public.fr says a report made from 1 April 2013 has unlimited validity, while ANIL states this for a report that records no asbestos; where List A materials are placed under periodic monitoring, a new assessment is due within three years at most. A report made before 1 April 2013 must be renewed before the sale.

The lead report has a short life: ANIL, the national housing information agency, says it must be less than one year old at signing. If an earlier report was negative and showed no danger, however, no new one is needed.

What the installations, the location and the energy rating trigger

Beyond the house’s age, three kinds of fact add reports. According to service-public.fr and ANIL, electrical and gas installations more than 15 years old each need a report, valid for three years. The location can require termite, risk, aircraft noise and dry-rot information, and the energy class decides whether an energy audit joins the energy performance certificate.

A termite report is needed where the house lies in a zone declared by prefectoral order, and it must be less than six months old. If you look for a termites map of France, go to the sources ANIL names instead: the departmental housing information agency ADIL, the departmental directorate for the territories, the prefecture, the town hall, or a search by commune on the website of the national termite observatory.

The risk statement covers areas such as natural, technological and mining risk plans, seismicity zones 2 to 5, the highest radon zone and coastal-retreat zones. Service-public.fr says the seller fills it in directly, for example through an online service, although any method is valid if the document is complete; it is handed over at the first visit and must be less than six months old. Where a natural disaster was declared and the seller holds the insurer’s expert report, the list of works not yet carried out to stop existing damage must be attached to the risk statement, even if the insurer has already paid.

Dry rot is handled differently. In zones identified by an order, the preliminary contract or the deed must state whether there is a risk of dry rot. ANIL notes that this information has no validity limit, and that its absence does not entitle the buyer to ask the court to cancel the sale or reduce the price.

The energy performance certificate is required for a house with a floor area of 50 m² or more and must be less than ten years old at the promise or the deed; older formats have already lapsed, as the table shows. Since 1 January 2026 the conversion factor for electricity has fallen from 2.3 to 1.9. Certificates made from that date use the new factor; those made in 2025 and before remain valid, but can be updated free of charge without a new visit where the energy rating improves (service-public.fr, page verified 1 January 2026).

An energy audit is added for houses rated E, F or G. In mainland France, service-public.fr applies it where the preliminary contract or the deed is signed from 1 April 2023 for classes F and G and from 1 January 2025 for class E, with class D to follow on 1 January 2034; the overseas departments follow a later calendar. The audit is valid for five years and applies to houses and to buildings of several dwellings with a single owner (page verified 1 January 2025).

What happens if a report is missing

A missing report shifts risk back to the seller, but not in the same way for every item. ANIL says that if one of the documents is missing when the notarial deed is signed, the seller cannot rely on an exclusion of the corresponding warranty against hidden defects.

The ministry for ecological transition names this consequence for the electricity report, among others, and service-public.fr for the asbestos report. It is not a rule for every item: the service-public.fr page on the energy audit states no such consequence, and the remedies for the risk statement and the dry-rot information are different.

If the risk statement is missing when the deed is signed, or information about past damage events is missing, ANIL says the buyer can ask the court to cancel the contract or to reduce the price.

Apart from the risk statement and the report on a non-collective sanitation system, the reports must be made by professionals who hold a certificate of competence from an accredited certification body, carry professional liability insurance and have no link to the owner or to a company that could carry out works on what they assess, according to the French ministry for ecological transition (page retrieved September 2026). The ministry adds that such a report cannot be established remotely, and that owners who use people who do not meet these conditions also face sanctions.

What none of the seller’s reports looks at

No document on the official list is an inspection of the structure, the foundations, cracks, the condition of the roof covering, damp or the condition of the windows. Some touch these parts for a narrower purpose: the energy certificate and audit look at the roof and windows for insulation, and the asbestos report at materials that may contain asbestos.

The termite report records termite infestation, not the overall state of the timber; the risk statement describes the zones a house lies in, not the ground under it; and the dry-rot item is a statement about a zone, not an inspection. If you expect a structural survey in France as part of the seller’s pack, none of these documents is one.

That leaves the questions a buyer usually cares about most:

• Damp. Condensation, rain penetration and moisture from the ground look different at a viewing; see damp when buying a house.
• The roof. Its age and condition are not in the pack; see how to tell the age of a roof.
• Cracks and movement. They need an assessment on site, ideally before you sign the preliminary contract.
• The sanitation system. The report is in the pack, but what a non-compliant finding means for you is explained in septic tanks and the SPANC report.
• Component ages. For heating, windows and other parts, see life expectancy of building components.

How briven approaches the seller’s pack

briven is preparing its launch in France. It does not produce any of the reports in the seller’s pack, cannot stand in for them and does not inspect the house. It is designed to rate components such as the roof, the façade and signs of damp, with a stated confidence level, from the photos and documents you provide.

Where its rating shows a need for action or its confidence is low, it is meant to recommend a check on site before you sign; it is meant to show which questions to take to an on-site assessment, not to answer them in its place. Its use of French documents and public data is still being prepared. You can join the waiting list on the English home page.

Frequently asked questions