Terms

French House Check. Updated 1 October 2026.

These are the terms for every report. They are written in plain English so that you know what you are buying before you ask for it. Sending an enquiry does not commission a report. The scope, price and timing are confirmed by email, and you are asked to agree to these terms before work begins.

1. What you get

A desk review of the public records for one house in France, written up in English. We read the local plan, the risk registers, the sale records and the other public sources listed in the report's appendix, as they stand on the day we run them, and we report what they say.

Each report includes two documents: a summary you can read in five minutes, and an evidence appendix with every source and the date it was read. Delivery timing is confirmed by email before work begins.

2. What it is not

A report is not a survey, a valuation, a diagnostic, or legal, tax or planning advice. Nobody visits the house. It does not replace the notaire, the mairie or any professional you instruct, and it does not tell you whether to buy, what to offer or whether something at the house is lawful.

Registers can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, and permits in particular are held locally and not published. A report says what the records hold. Where nothing is recorded on a point, the report says "nothing recorded", which is all it can know. Where a finding depends on how a rule is read, the report states the reading and names the body that gives the binding answer. Plans and rules change; confirm anything a decision turns on with that body before you act.

3. Who may rely on it

Every report is prepared for a named client, on a stated date, for their use in deciding whether to buy, sell or build at that property. The first lines of the report say so. Nobody else may rely on it without our written agreement. If you are asking on behalf of someone else, tell us, and the report is addressed to the person deciding.

4. How the work runs

• The report rests on the address and the parcels confirmed with you. If what we describe does not match what is there, tell us and we will rerun it.
• We keep the dated output of every run, so that what a register said on the day can be shown later.
• We check a house you have found. We do not find properties, contact agents or sellers on your behalf, or take material from the seller's side. The one exception is an owner asking about their own house.

5. Corrections and reissues

If you know something the records do not, send it over. We reissue the report with a version number and a one-line note of what changed. A reissue on your own correction costs nothing.

A report older than three months is rerun before it goes to anyone, including you, because plans and registers move on.

6. Confidentiality

Your request and your report stay between us. We do not contact the agent, the seller or anyone else about the house, and a report never names who asked for it or where the request came from. No report, excerpt or quote is used as a sample, in a guide or as a testimonial unless you have said yes in writing, and then only with the address and your name removed.

Your request is stored on our own systems so that we can run the job and keep the record of what was agreed. Email reports@frenchhousecheck.com and we will tell you what we hold or delete it.

Website analytics

PostHog records page visits, whether a “Check a house” button is clicked, whether a form enquiry succeeds or fails, and browser errors. Names, email addresses and property details from the form are not sent to PostHog. Session recording is disabled, and analytics identifiers are kept in memory rather than saved in cookies or local storage.

7. Price and payment

The price is stated in our email reply, with the scope and the date, before any work starts. There is nothing else to pay, and no VAT is charged. The fee is due when the report is delivered; we send the report and the payment details together.

8. Starting straight away, and cancelling

If you ask us by email to start the work straight away after agreeing to the scope, price and these terms, you ask us to begin without waiting out the 14-day cancellation period that applies to services bought at a distance. Until the report is delivered you can cancel by email, and you pay for the part of the work done by then. Once the report is delivered, the work is complete and the right to cancel ends.

9. If something is wrong

If a finding is wrong, tell us and we will rerun the check and reissue the report. Our responsibility for a report is to the named client only, and it is limited to reporting the public records accurately as they stood on the run date. Decisions about the property, and what you pay for it, remain yours.

10. Questions

Email reports@frenchhousecheck.com before you send a request if anything here is unclear. We reply within one working day.