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French Consumer Law

Before Law No 2015-177 of 16 February 2015, Article 1644 of the Civil Code required that the assessment of the part of price to be returned by the seller be decided by experts . Neither the buyer , nor the court  could determine the amount to be recovered themselves. The trial court could not therefore fix the reduction of the sale price at the cost of the work necessary to remedy the defect as es …

Amount of the reduction

The purchaser of a thing affected by a defect does not necessarily want to get rid of it, especially when the use of the thing is not prevented, but only diminished. Thus, Article 1644 of the Civil Code allows the buyer to choose between an action for rescission which involves the cancellation of the contract of sale, and the action for a reduction of the price, which entails the retention of the thing and the reimbursement of part of the price . However, the action for a reduction of the price must not be confused with the action for compensation, which aims to award damages to the buyer for the injury that the defect may have caused him . In addition, the action by which the buyer indicates that he wishes to keep the thing while claiming a full refund of the price must be re-classified by the court as an action for rescission, and subject to the mutual restitution rule .

Unlike the action for recission, the purpose of the action for a reduction of the price is not to return the parties to the situation they would have been in if they had not contracted, but to replace the buyer in the situation he would have been in if the thing sold had not been affected by a latent defect . It is therefore irrelevant that the buyer is no longer the owner of the thing at the time of exercise of his action, in particular when he has resold it. This circumstance can only have the consequence of depriving him of the ability to exercise the action for recission and he remains entitled to demand reimbursement of the price corresponding to the cost of repairing the thing .

  CA Colmar, 8 December 2005, LawLex200600001721JBJ.

 Cass. com., 8 July 2008, LawLex201200001584JBJ; CA Versailles, 29 November 1996, LawLex200700000672JBJ.

 CA Toulouse, 20 September 2005, LawLex200600001702JBJ.

 CA Montpellier, 13 September 2012, LawLex201300000208JBJ.

Purpose of the action

Before Law No 2015-177 of 16 February 2015, Article 1644 of the Civil Code required that the assessment of the part of price to be returned by the seller be decided by experts . Neither the buyer , nor the court  could determine the amount to be recovered themselves. The trial court could not therefore fix the reduction of the sale price at the cost of the work necessary to remedy the defect as estimated by the expert appointed in summary proceedings to described the issues of the building and to determine the causes and cost of rehabilitation, when the partial refund of the price is to be decided, at a later stage, by experts . It also did not have the power to substitute its assessment for that of the experts .

Noting that the obligation of the court to appoint experts to estimate the amount to be refunded unnecessarily increased the cost and length of the proceedings, to the detriment of both the public and the litigants , who could in practice be discouraged from applying for a reduction of the price, in particular for goods of low value, the Court of Cassation recommended in its report for 2013 that this obligation be abolished. This was carried out by the Law of 16 February 2015, which now allows the court to determine the amount of the reduction or to resort, only if it deems necessary, to the expert appraisal.

The amount of the reduction of the price must be proportional to the decrease in value of the thing  and correspond to the difference between the price paid by the buyer at the time of the sale and that he would have paid if he had been aware of the defects . The party bringing the action for a reduction may therefore be reimbursed only that portion of the price which exceeds what he would have paid if he had been fully aware of the extent of the defect, where he has already obtained a reduction in the sale price as a result of the existence of a risk . In practice, this amount is often fixed by the court at the cost of the necessary repairs to render the good fit for its use . However, it cannot correspond to the cost of the complete rehabilitation of the vehicle, when only a minor defect was identified .

In some cases, experts were able to estimate the cost of repairs at an amount higher than the price at which the vehicle was sold. The Court of Cassation capped the amount of the reduction to a level that must necessarily be lower than the price paid . Moreover, the purchaser can claim a reduction in the sale price even if this price, on the day of conclusion of the contract, was significantly lower than the value of the thing as estimated by the expert. Indeed, it is immaterial whether the buyer, at the time of the sale, paid a very good price when he was unaware, on this date, of the existence of the defect and had to incur costs to remedy the disorders .

  Cass. com., 19 October 1999, LawLex200500003964JBJ: holding that the judge did not commit a denial of justice by delegation to an expert the task of estimating the amount of the reduction in the sale price.

  Cass. 1re civ., 3 May 2006, LawLex200600001982JBJ. See already, CA Versailles, 13 January 2000, LawLex200500005068JBJ.

  CA Colmar, 15 February 1991, LawLex201200000802JBJ.

  Cass. 3e civ., 19 April 2000, LawLex200500004317JBJ; CA Douai, 31 January 2011, LawLex201200001683JBJ; CA Rennes, 22novembre2019,LawLex201900001443JBJ.

  Cass. 3e civ., 1 February 2006, LawLex200700000653JBJ.

  Cass. 3e civ., 3 December 2013, LawLex201400000355JBJ; 7 October 2014, LawLex201600000240JBJ; Cass. 1re civ., 4 June 2014, LawLex201400002108JBJ.

  Cass. 3e civ., 4 April 2013, LawLex201400000363JBJ.

 Cass. 3e civ., 11 November 1999, LawLex200400003431JBJ; 26 June 2002, LawLex200400003625JBJ.

 See CA Bordeaux, 11 April 2013, LawLex201400001660JBJ, imposing the appointment of at least two experts.

  CA Nîmes, 11 September 2012, LawLex201300000215JBJ.

  CA Rouen, 17 October 2012, LawLex201300000218JBJ.

Cass.3e civ.,18 October 2018,LawLex201800001598JBJ.

 CA  Rouen, 4 January 2006, LawLex200700000542JBJ.

French Consumer Law

618. Amount of the reduction

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Les notions juridiques connexes

618. Amount of the reduction

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise