The three clocks: what each period covers
The LOE organises liability for material damage to the building in three concentric periods, defined by the nature of the defect and not by its apparent severity. All three run from acceptance of the works.
One year for material damage from execution defects affecting completion or finishing elements of the works: the snags, the finishes, the building's fine skin. It is the shortest period and the one that expires the most rights.
Three years for damage caused by defects of the construction elements or the services that breach the habitability requirements: damp and watertightness, thermal and acoustic insulation, health, functioning of the services, the building as a machine for living. It covers defects making the building unfit without compromising its stability.
Ten years for damage originating in or affecting the foundations, the supports, the beams, the slabs, the load-bearing walls or other structural elements, and directly compromising the building's mechanical strength and stability: the structure as the ultimate guarantee. It is the period the ten-year insurance makes liquid.
The classification of the damage is, therefore, the first technical battle of any claim: the same symptom, a crack, a damp patch, can belong to different clocks depending on its origin, and on the clock depend the available period and the reachable parties. The technical diagnosis comes before any claim.
| Period | What it covers | Example of damage |
|---|---|---|
| One year | Execution defects in completion or finishing elements | Snags, paintwork, internal joinery |
| Three years | Defects breaching the habitability requirements | Damp, thermal and acoustic insulation, services |
| Ten years | Damage affecting structural elements and compromising stability | Foundations, supports, beams, slabs, load-bearing walls |
Who answers: the distribution and joint liability
The system's general rule is individualised liability: each agent answers for the damage caused by their own acts or omissions, in accordance with the functions the LOE assigns them, presented in the article on the building agents. The designer, for design errors; the contractor, for execution defects, with the particularity that the annual finishing warranty falls exclusively on the contractor; the works director and the execution director, for breach of their respective direction and control functions.
Two correctors operate on that rule. When the damage cannot be individualised, or faults concur without the possibility of specifying each agent's degree of intervention, liability is demanded jointly and severally. And the developer answers jointly and severally in every case towards purchasers, the final-guarantor position developed in the article on the developer's obligations: the buyer can pursue the developer for the whole, and it is then the developer who claims back against the others.
The counting: from when and until when
The three warranty periods run from the acceptance of the works, without reservations or from their remedy, which makes the acceptance certificate, covered in the article on handover and the final certificate, the reference date of the whole system. They are warranty periods: the damage must manifest within them to be covered.
Over them is superimposed a second clock practice frequently forgets: that of the action. Once the damage manifests within its warranty period, the action to demand liability prescribes within the legal period counted from when the damage occurred. Two clocks, two disciplines: watching the building during the warranty years, and acting diligently from the moment the damage appears, documenting its date of manifestation, which will be as disputed as its cause.
Claiming in practice: the route and the evidence
A well-built claim chains four steps. Early documentation of the damage: dated photographs, formal communication to the liable parties, and the building logbook as the archive of what was built and controlled. The technical diagnosis: an expert report classifying the damage, its origin and its clock, the piece deciding against whom and under which period one claims. The extrajudicial claim: the formal communication interrupting the action's prescription and opening the negotiation, with the ten-year insurance as an added interlocutor when the damage is structural in housing, under the mechanics developed in the article on the ten-year insurance. And where needed the judicial route, where the quality of everything before, dates, reports, communications, the building's archive, literally becomes the outcome.
The transversal lesson is documentary: the LOE warranties are worth what the available evidence is worth on the day of using them, and that evidence is manufactured during the works and the acceptance, not during the lawsuit. The file is built during the works and the acceptance.
Frequent errors
The first is letting the finishing year pass waiting for minor defects to fix themselves: the shortest clock is also the one that expires the most rights. Finishing defects are claimed as soon as they appear.
The second is classifying the damage by its symptom and not by its origin, claiming under the wrong period or against the wrong agent. The origin is established by technical diagnosis rather than visual inspection.
The third is claiming late within the warranty: confusing the warranty period with that of the action and discovering prescription with the damage still current. The warranty period and the limitation period are distinct and run in parallel.
The fourth is claiming without a file: informal communications, without a certain date or technical diagnosis, which neither interrupt periods nor later sustain a lawsuit. The communication is made by a means that records the date.
Note: the regime described is that of article 17 and related provisions of the consolidated LOE; the action's prescription periods and their concrete counting must be verified with legal advice for each case.