IFP Forums

[Andy Yeo]

Help, I'm having kittens here.
Heres the story, I am slowly renovating the property & live in England
I've had a fosse septique fitted by the local company (Vendee region) this was completed nearly a year ago now, but
over last winter the tank rose out of the ground by a good 30-40 cm. The area has a high water table & it appears the company did not fill the tank after they finished the work, so it now resembles a a surfacing submarine.
To cure the problem, I am told artisans use their insurance company. The insurance company want to involve my house insurance (based in England).
The french company are insisting that my company contact them via the phone before they can progress any further. My company will not do this partly because they feel its got nothing to do with them, & partly because they dont have any french speakers.
So here I am in a stalemate , 11,000 euros later with a submarine in the garden.
Can anyone out there give me some advice please?

[User35992]

Hi Mate. In law your contract is with your insurer, your insurer knew & took on the risk & you cash. If I were you I would send a registered letter insisting that they fulfill there part of the insurance contract & go on with it fast. I would give then one week to give you there program of what they are doing about the situation, and failing a positive response. I would report them to the Insurance ombudsman and although prity much a joke they will at least contact the company. Look at what the small claims court limit is and send them to court. They will sort it out but it is an unfortunate reality that unless you shout and I mean loud you will be fobbed off for as long as they can. I might suggest that you send the company that installed the Foss a letter stating that you will be suing them unless the work is corrected, I have found this a good ploy in the passed. The result is the installing company put pressure on there insurers as they like everyone else in the story do not like paying for something they don't think they are getting.
Good LUCK
PS
If your insurer persists in being a pain you are entitled to claim against them for maladministration your account, it will only be a small amount but the more time and paper work involved you get the more you are entitled, so keep the paper work. This will be taken up in the small climes court.

[jtr]

I'm at a loss to understand what part your house insurance (which will underwrite specific risks to your property storm damage/fire/theft etc, not professional indemnity) has to do with issue. Now for all I know you may have the most comprehensive insurance on your project and it may protect you from 'poor workmanship', should it do so it will be a first in my experience. Do you have any kind of legal cover through your insurance that might help?

In any event your contract is with the 'artisans' and if they have failed to carry out the works correctly, they and they alone are responsible for rectifying the problem. Your recourse is to request they do so in a determined time frame, should they not comply or deny responsibility (in this instance it's difficult to see how they could, committing the most basic of errors by not ballasting the fosse, in essence the fosse needs to have ballast added as the excavations are being back-filled to prevent damage to or lifting of the vessel and given the high water table would have required a concrete back-fill) then in suing them for the cost of putting right their errors their Public Liability insurance will become involved. Their PL insurance are unlikely to be too impressed in paying for rectification work caused by recognisably poor workmanship by their client and encourage them to rectify the works. Should they not and chose to go out of business their PL insurance will be liable and fund the rectification work.

The delay between completion of the installation and when the defect becomes evident is unimportant as it's from when the defects become evident that you begin any action providing you could not have known the of the defect earlier.

[Andy Yeo]

Hi, thanks for your replies, I am still having difficulty getting to the bottom of this, from what I can gather the artisans insurers have refused to carry out the repairs.
I have a friend who is trying to contact 'cnatp' this is the trade organization which the installers are in. As with most things in france,she is getting nowhere fast. I was even thinking of contacting my local marie. I am going over to the house mid november, so I just hope we can sort something then.
Andy