France is living through its most severe drought on record. In July 2026, groundwater levels were below average at 63% of monitoring points and falling at 94% of them, according to reports in the French and international press, while three heatwaves in two months have pushed the Caisse centrale de r\u00e9assurance (CCR), the state-owned reinsurer, to warn that 2026 could match 2022 \u2014 the costliest year on record for drought damage to homes. The numbers are striking: an estimated 12 million houses, roughly 60% of the French housing stock, are built on clay soils susceptible to retrait-gonflement des argiles<\/em> (clay shrink-swell), and CCR now puts the long-term repair bill in the hundreds of billions of euros.<\/p>\n For buyers from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, this is not an abstract climate debate. It is a legal one. Cracks in walls and foundations, the refusal of an insurer to pay, a seller who concealed a past drought claim, an outdated \u00e9tat des risques<\/em> (natural risk disclosure statement) in the sale file \u2014 each of these situations is now governed by a body of French law that the Cour de cassation has been refining, including in rulings handed down in 2024, 2025 and as recently as February 2026. This article sets out, step by step, how drought damage is compensated in France, what the seller must disclose before you sign, and what remedies you have after completion if the house starts cracking. It is written for foreign buyers who are not familiar with the French system, and it refers exclusively to official sources: the French Civil Code, the Insurance Code, the Environmental Code, the Construction and Housing Code, and published decisions of the Cour de cassation with their official links.<\/p>\n Drought damage to private homes is not covered by ordinary building insurance. It is covered by a dedicated mechanism created in 1982, the r\u00e9gime des catastrophes naturelles<\/em> (natural disasters regime, often shortened to “cat nat”). Every home insurance policy in France must automatically include this extension by law, and it is funded by a levy on every policy. Understanding its exact scope, and its strict deadlines, is the first thing any owner \u2014 resident or non-resident \u2014 must master.<\/p>\n The legal foundation is Article L. 125-1 of the French Insurance Code<\/a>, which defines the covered damage as “les dommages mat\u00e9riels directs non assurables ayant eu pour cause d\u00e9terminante l’intensit\u00e9 anormale d’un agent naturel” \u2014 in plain English, direct material damage that could not be insured against through ordinary policies, caused in a decisive way by the abnormal intensity of a natural agent. Since the reform enacted by the law of 28 December 2021, which took effect on 1 January 2024, the text adds a specific rule for clay soils: for mouvements de terrain diff\u00e9rentiels cons\u00e9cutifs \u00e0 la s\u00e9cheresse et \u00e0 la r\u00e9hydratation des sols<\/em> (differential ground movements caused by drought and by soil rehydration), the guarantee requires a “succession anormale d’\u00e9v\u00e9nements de s\u00e9cheresse d’ampleur significative” \u2014 an abnormal succession of significant drought episodes, rather than a single dry spell.<\/p>\n Two practical consequences follow directly from this definition, and both have been confirmed by the Cour de cassation in recent years.<\/p>\n First, the damage must result from a natural event that has been formally recognised by the state. Recognition takes the form of an arr\u00eat\u00e9 interminist\u00e9riel<\/em> (joint ministerial order) declaring the municipality in a state of natural disaster and specifying the period and the nature of the covered damage. Without such an order covering your commune and the relevant period, the insurance extension is not triggered. This is why the first question any owner asks after discovering cracks is whether their municipality has been recognised, and for which period.<\/p>\n Second, the guarantee is strictly limited to direct material damage. In Cass. 2e civ., 9 November 2023, no. 22-13.156<\/a>, a couple from Barjac (Gard) whose house had been damaged by drought asked their insurer to reimburse their relocation costs and storage costs for furniture during the repair works. The Cour de cassation struck those amounts down, ruling that “ne sont pas garantis \u00e0 ce titre les dommages immat\u00e9riels” \u2014 intangible losses, such as moving and storage expenses, are not covered by the cat-nat guarantee. The repair of the foundations, walls and finishes is covered; the disruption around it, as a general rule, is not.<\/p>\n The same strict reading applies to the burden of proving the cause. In Cass. 2e civ., 12 February 2026, no. 24-15.504<\/a>, the Cour de cassation quashed a Court of Appeal decision that had ordered the insurer MMA to pay \u20ac40,000 for cracks in a building. The appeal court had assumed, from the absence of visible cracks at the time the policy was taken out, that the damage was caused by the exceptional droughts of 2016 and 2017. The Cour de cassation held that the judges must verify, under Article L. 125-1, whether “les mesures habituelles \u00e0 prendre pour pr\u00e9venir ces dommages n’ont pu emp\u00eacher leur survenance ou n’ont pu \u00eatre prises” \u2014 that is, whether the usual preventive measures could not prevent the damage, or could not have been taken. The lesson for owners is simple: do not assume that the insurer will pay on the basis of a visual inspection. You will need a technical expert’s report demonstrating that the drought, not the age of the building or pre-existing fragility, is the decisive cause, and that prevention was impossible or ineffective.<\/p>\n Time limits are the second pillar of the regime, and they are strictly enforced. There are three distinct clocks, and a foreign owner who misses any of them loses the claim entirely.<\/p>\n The first clock concerns the request for recognition. Under Article L. 125-1 of the Insurance Code, the municipality must apply to the prefect for recognition of the state of natural disaster, and no application can succeed if it is filed more than twenty-four months after the start of the natural event. As a homeowner you cannot act directly: the request is made by the mayor, and recognition is published in the Journal officiel<\/em>. In practice, owners should contact their town hall promptly after a drought episode and monitor the publication of the orders.<\/p>\n The second clock concerns the claim against the insurer. The general rule, set out in Article L. 114-1 of the Insurance Code<\/a>, is that actions arising from an insurance contract are barred after two years. By exception, since the law of 28 December 2021, claims relating to damage caused by mouvements de terrain cons\u00e9cutifs \u00e0 la s\u00e9cheresse-r\u00e9hydratation des sols<\/em> (ground movements consecutive to drought and soil rehydration) are barred after five years. In both cases, however, the starting point is not the date of the drought, nor even the date of the damage: it is the moment the policyholder learned of it, if he can prove he was previously unaware. For cat-nat damage, the Cour de cassation has combined this with the specific rule that the limitation period cannot start before the arr\u00eat\u00e9<\/em> recognising the catastrophe is published.<\/p>\n In Cass. 2e civ., 11 July 2024, no. 22-21.366<\/a> (published in the Bulletin), buyers of a house in Haute-Garonne discovered micro-cracks in July 2004 and later learned, through the expert’s report delivered in July 2016, that the damage originated from the drought episode of spring 2011, recognised as a natural catastrophe by an order published in August 2012. The Court of Appeal had barred their claim, holding that the two-year period ran from publication of the order. The Cour de cassation quashed the decision, stating that “le point de d\u00e9part de la prescription de l’action en indemnisation des cons\u00e9quences dommageables d’un sinistre de catastrophe naturelle se situe \u00e0 la date de publication de l’arr\u00eat\u00e9, mais peut \u00eatre report\u00e9 au-del\u00e0 si l’assur\u00e9 n’a eu connaissance des dommages caus\u00e9s \u00e0 son bien par ce sinistre qu’apr\u00e8s cette publication” \u2014 the limitation period for a cat-nat claim starts at the publication of the order, but is postponed if the policyholder only became aware of the damage after that date. The combination of Article L. 114-1 of the Insurance Code and Article 2224 of the Civil Code<\/a>, under which personal actions are barred after five years from the day the claimant knew or should have known the facts enabling the action, therefore gives owners meaningful protection \u2014 provided they act within the window once the damage becomes apparent.<\/p>\n The third practical point is documentation. Insurers will ask for proof of when the damage first appeared, photographs, and often a geotechnical study. Keep every document, in French where possible, and notify the insurer in writing (recorded delivery with acknowledgement of receipt, lettre recommand\u00e9e avec accus\u00e9 de r\u00e9ception<\/em>) within the applicable period. For non-resident owners, the question of which insurer to contact \u2014 the French home insurer \u2014 is straightforward, but the question of who is entitled to make the claim when the property is owned through a French SCI<\/a><\/em> (property holding company) deserves specific advice, because the policyholder must match the insured entity. A lawyer familiar with both French property law and the practicalities of cross-border ownership, such as the real estate team at Kohen Avocats in Paris<\/a>, can review your ownership structure before you ever need to claim.<\/p>\n The second part of this article addresses the purchase itself. The 2026 drought has made clay risk a mainstream concern for buyers, and French law gives buyers two complementary layers of protection: mandatory information before the sale, and the seller’s legal liability after it.<\/p>\n French law requires the seller of a property located in a risk zone to inform the buyer, through a standardised document called the \u00e9tat des risques<\/em> (natural risk disclosure statement). This obligation is set out in Article L. 125-5 of the Environmental Code<\/a>, which provides that buyers of property “situ\u00e9s dans des zones couvertes par un plan de pr\u00e9vention des risques technologiques, par un plan de pr\u00e9vention des risques miniers ou par un plan de pr\u00e9vention des risques naturels pr\u00e9visibles, prescrit ou approuv\u00e9” \u2014 located in areas covered by a technological, mining or natural risk prevention plan (plan de pr\u00e9vention des risques naturels<\/em>, PPRN), prescribed or approved \u2014 must be informed of these risks. The statement is generated from official data on the government’s G\u00e9orisques<\/em> platform, where the exposure of every commune to clay shrink-swell is mapped and, since the revised maps published in 2025 and 2026, increasingly precise. The statement must be annexed to the sale file, and its absence or inaccuracy can be sanctioned, under Article L. 125-5 V, by the buyer “poursuivre la r\u00e9solution du contrat ou demander au juge une diminution du prix” \u2014 bringing an action to rescind the sale or asking the court to reduce the price.<\/p>\n The \u00e9tat des risques<\/em> is one component of the dossier de diagnostic technique<\/em> (technical diagnostics file) which, under Article L. 271-4 of the French Construction and Housing Code<\/a>, must be attached to the compromis de vente<\/a><\/em> (preliminary sale agreement) or, if there is none, to the acte authentique<\/em> (final notarial deed). The text is explicit about the consequence of a missing risk statement: “En l’absence, lors de la signature de l’acte authentique de vente, du document mentionn\u00e9 aux 5\u00b0 et 12\u00b0 du I, l’acqu\u00e9reur peut poursuivre la r\u00e9solution du contrat ou demander au juge une diminution du prix” \u2014 if the risk statement is missing at the final deed, the buyer may seek rescission or a price reduction.<\/p>\n This is not a theoretical sanction. In Cass. 3e civ., 19 February 2026, no. 24-10.524<\/a> (published in the Bulletin), a couple had bought a building plot in the H\u00e9rault on 21 and 23 March 2012. A flood risk prevention plan (PPRN) for the commune had been approved by prefectoral order on 28 February 2012 \u2014 after the promesse de vente<\/em> (promise to sell) of 3 November 2011 but before the final deed. The seller produced an \u00e9tat des risques<\/em> dated 3 November 2011 which only mentioned the prescribed (not yet approved) plan, and the notary did not update it. In 2016, the buyers discovered they could not build: the plot was in the plan’s very high flood-hazard zone, and a negative planning certificate confirmed it. The Court of Appeal dismissed their claims, but the Cour de cassation quashed the decision, holding that “si, apr\u00e8s la promesse de vente, la parcelle sur laquelle est implant\u00e9 l’immeuble objet de la vente est inscrite dans une zone couverte par un plan de pr\u00e9vention des risques naturels pr\u00e9visibles prescrit ou approuv\u00e9, le dossier de diagnostic technique est compl\u00e9t\u00e9, lors de la signature de l’acte authentique de vente, par un \u00e9tat des risques ou par une mise \u00e0 jour de l’\u00e9tat existant” \u2014 if, after the preliminary contract, the plot enters a zone covered by a prescribed or approved PPRN, the file must be completed at the final deed with a new or updated risk statement. The seller and the two notaries were ordered to bear the costs. For a foreign buyer, the practical rule is simple: check the date of the \u00e9tat des risques<\/em>, verify on G\u00e9orisques<\/em> that it reflects the current exposure (including approved plans), and ask the notary to confirm in writing that the statement was updated at the final deed.<\/p>\n Finally, sellers must also answer questions about past damage truthfully. In Cass. 3e civ., 18 January 2023, no. 21-24.266<\/a>, the deed stated that the house had never suffered a claim arising from a natural or technological disaster, although the region had experienced several droughts. The buyers later faced cracks and sued for dol<\/em> (fraudulent misrepresentation). The Cour de cassation upheld the dismissal of their claim, but on instructive grounds: the false declaration was indeed established, yet the buyers had been fully informed of the drought risk because the list of natural catastrophe orders for the commune was set out in the deed itself, and the house had been stable for eleven years. The Court recalled that “l’erreur provoqu\u00e9e par le dol devait avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9terminante du consentement” \u2014 the mistake induced by the fraud must have been decisive of the buyer’s consent. The lesson cuts both ways: a misleading declaration is not automatically actionable, but the deed’s contents \u2014 including the list of past arr\u00eat\u00e9s<\/em> and the seller’s warranty declarations \u2014 become the central piece of evidence in any dispute.<\/p>\n If cracks appear or worsen after completion, the buyer’s second layer of protection is the seller’s legal warranty against hidden defects, the garantie des vices cach\u00e9s<\/a><\/em>. Article 1641 of the Civil Code<\/a> states that “Le vendeur est tenu de la garantie \u00e0 raison des d\u00e9fauts cach\u00e9s de la chose vendue qui la rendent impropre \u00e0 l’usage auquel on la destine, ou qui diminuent tellement cet usage que l’acheteur ne l’aurait pas acquise, ou n’en aurait donn\u00e9 qu’un moindre prix, s’il les avait connus” \u2014 the seller guarantees against hidden defects that make the property unfit for its intended use, or reduce its use to the point that the buyer would not have bought it, or would have paid less, had he known. The buyer can choose, under Article 1644 of the Civil Code, between rescission of the sale and a reduction of the price, plus damages if the seller was in bad faith.<\/p>\n The boundaries of this warranty have been clarified by the Cour de cassation in cases directly involving cracks, clay soils and drought. Three points matter most for a foreign buyer.<\/p>\n First, a defect is not “hidden” simply because it is not visible from the pavement. Under Article 1642 of the Civil Code<\/a>, “Le vendeur n’est pas tenu des vices apparents et dont l’acheteur a pu se convaincre lui-m\u00eame” \u2014 the seller is not liable for apparent defects which the buyer could have discovered for himself. The Cour de cassation interprets this strictly in the buyer’s favour. In Cass. 3e civ., 14 September 2023, no. 22-16.638<\/a>, buyers of a house in Is\u00e8re sued after discovering “numerous cracks in every room and on every facade” \u2014 the expert recommended demolition and reconstruction. The Court of Appeal dismissed their claim, reasoning that metal tie rods installed years earlier and some visible cracks should have alerted the buyers. The Cour de cassation quashed the decision, ruling that the judges had to examine whether the buyers could have appreciated, by themselves, “l’ampleur et des cons\u00e9quences des fissures” \u2014 the full scale and consequences of the cracks \u2014 which were evolving and, according to the expert, compromising the structure. A few visible cracks, or even structural clues, do not necessarily make the defect apparent; its true extent often only emerges from a full expert report.<\/p>\nI. How French Law Compensates Drought Damage: The Catastrophes Naturelles<\/em> Regime<\/h2>\n
A. The Scope of the Guarantee: Direct Material Damage Only, Caused by a Recognised Event<\/h3>\n
B. Claims, Recognition and Time Limits: The Deadlines You Must Not Miss<\/h3>\n
II. Buying in Clay-Prone Areas: Disclosure, Hidden Defects and Practical Protection<\/h2>\n
A. What the Seller Must Disclose: The \u00c9tat des Risques<\/em> and the Diagnostics File<\/h3>\n
B. Hidden Defects After Purchase: The Seller’s Liability Under Vices Cach\u00e9s<\/em><\/h3>\n