French Consumer Law is a comprehensive and comparative overview of French and EU law in this field, covering: advertising, unfair commercial practices, conditions for the validity of contracts, unfair terms, product conformity, latent defects, product safety.

French Consumer Law

The consumer has a period of two years from the date of delivery to bring an action under the legal guarantee of conformity (Article L. 217-12, former Article L. 211-12 of the Consumer Code) . This time-limit complies with Article 5(1) of Directive No 1999/44 and Article 10 of Directive No 2019/771 which replaces it from 1 January 2022. According to the Court of Justice, the possibility for Member …

Time-limit for bringing claim and statute of limitations

The consumer has a period of two years from the date of delivery to bring an action under the legal guarantee of conformity (Article L. 217-12, former Article L. 211-12 of the Consumer Code) . This time-limit complies with Article 5(1) of Directive No 1999/44 and Article 10 of Directive No 2019/771 which replaces it from 1 January 2022. According to the Court of Justice, the possibility for Member States to provide that, in the case of second-hand goods, the parties may reduce the duration of the period of liability of the seller to one year from the time of delivery of the goods does not enable Member States to provide also that the parties may reduce the two-year limitation period under Union law . The directive also permits Member States to provide for a second optional period in which the buyer can notify the defect, set at two months from the date on which it was found . Article 12 of Directive No 2019/771 retains the possibility for Member States to maintain or introduce provisions stipulating that, in order to benefit from the consumer's rights, the consumer has to inform the seller of a lack of conformity within a period of at least 2 months of the date on which the consumer detected it. The French legislator did not take up this second period, and merely adopted the single time-limit for bringing an action.

On the other hand, the last clause of Article L. 217-3 now sets out a time-limit, providing that “the deadline for bringing a claim under the guarantee shall apply without prejudice to Articles 2224 et seq. of the Civil Code, it being understood that "the starting point of the limitation period for the consumer's claim is the day on which the consumer becomes aware of the lack of conformity”. In concrete terms, the consumer's legal guarantee of conformity action may be brought more than two years after the delivery of the goods, without exceeding the five-year time-limit of the ordinary civil law under Article 2224 of the Civil Code, which runs from the date of knowledge of the defect.
Whereas previously, since the guarantee period and the limitation period were the same - two years from the delivery of the goods - the relatively short time-limit for action under the legal guarantee of conformity could lead consumers to prefer to take action under the warranty against latent defects or for breach of the obligation to deliver in conformity, which were more favorable in terms of the limitation periods. In effect, relative to the warranty against latent defects, Article 1648 of the Civil Code provides that the buyer may act within a period of two years, but from the discovery of the defect, not the delivery of the goods. Actions for breach of the obligation to deliver goods in conformity are subject to the general legal rules on limitation periods, i.e. a period of five years from knowledge of the defect. Recourse to the either of those grounds could therefore prove more advantageous to consumers.  In practice, this should no longer be the case, as an action under the consumer's legal warranty of conformity can be brought within two years of delivery of the goods, without exceeding the five-year limitation period under ordinary civil law. 

Even before the introduction of this new rule, the courts were relatively flexible in their interpretation of Article L. 217-12 . Thus, according to the courts, like the rules on the warranty against latent defects, the limitation period of the action in conformity expires two years from the delivery of the good, except when the defect concerns the unfitness of the thing for its intended purpose, when the consumer can only act from the date on which he became aware of the defect . Some courts consider that the ordinary civil law guarantee of non-conformity takes over from the consumer law guarantee when its conditions are not met, so that a consumer who maintains that the non-conformity he is claiming was not materially revealed to its full extent within two years of the sale, but only as a result of a subsequent expert's report, is entitled to bring an action for rescission on the basis of Article 1603 of the Civil Code, which, in application of Article 2224 of that code, is barred after five years from the date on which the proprietor knew, or should have known, the facts enabling him to exercise that right .

 Furthermore, the Court of Cassation considers that the fact that repair of the thing at the seller's expense was proposed on two occasions to the buyer constitutes an unequivocal acknowledgement of liability, which interrupts the period for bringing an action for breach of the obligation of conformity . 

  CA Nancy, 9 June 2011, LawLex201300000554JBJ.

 Case C-133/16 Christian Ferenschild, Judgment of 13 July 2017, LawLex201800001145JBJ.

  Case C-497/13 Froukje Faber, Judgment of 4 June 2015, LawLex201500000691JBJ: Article 5(2) of Directive No 1999/44 does not preclude a national rule which provides that the consumer, to benefit from his rights under the Directive, must inform the seller of the lack of conformity in good time, provided that the consumer has, to provide this information, a period of not less than two months from the date on which he discovered the defect.

 CA  Nîmes, 2 April 2015, LawLex201600000138JBJ.

CA Toulouse, 7 July 2023, LawLex202300010839JBJ.

 Cass. 1re civ., 30 April 2014, LawLex201600000127JBJ; See also CA Colmar, 3 March 2023, LawLex202300004848JBJ, holding that an action based on warranty against latent defects and an action based on the legal guarantee of conformity both have the same aim, i.e. to have the sale rescinded, so that the buyer, relying on Article 1641 of the Civil Code in his writ of summons, validly interrupts the limitation period for the claim based on Articles L.217-7 et seq. of the Consumer Code, even if the plea was raised subsequently.

French Consumer Law

522. Time-limit for bringing claim and statute of limitations

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522. Time-limit for bringing claim and statute of limitations

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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