When you buy French property right now one of the requirements by law you will learn from the French notary is that the sellers supply the French property buyers with a set of diagnostic reports.
Buyers see these reports as valuable. We only see them as a starting point because…
There is a problem with the French property diagnostic reports.
The reports do not require any investigation into the effectiveness and condition of the plumbing in the property with the exception the reports will tell you if the pipes are made of lead.
The problem is that you as a buyer may purchase a home that has drainage problems neither you or the prior owner may know about.
See the photo above.
We heard from an new owner who bought directly from a seller without the help of an agent a beautiful French home and then within two months of the purchase, the toilet was blocked and stuff from the toilet was coming back into the toilet area. “Not a pretty sight” was all the buyer could tell us about the toilet when I met her at a social event.
The cause, as a French plumber explained after some digging, was that one of the previous owners had installed drainage pipes (as in the picture) that led water from the toilet to a 90 angle junction before the liquid could get down the pipe to the street out front of the French home. So naturally things got blocked at the corner.
In addition, as you can see via the picture the drainage included pipes that were not connected. So when the old and new owners flushed the toilet some of the water made it around the corner and some of it soaked into the ground.
The plumber explained that if the new owner had a plumber inspect the pipes via the drain above the pipes part of the problem would have been noticed right away but no inspection is done as part of the current French diagnostic reports and the buyer thought all was okay.
A properly qualified home inspection service with the help of a plumber could have discovered this expensive to repair problem prior to the purchase offer so the old owner would have had to pay for the fix instead of the new buyer. Or the buyer could have asked for a reduced price.
We recommend when you buy a property in France you have an inspection of the property done in addition to reviewing the diagnostic reports. The cost of an inspection would be less than the cost of this plumbing repair.
Another Diagnostic Report problem read more here
