Market of works-Technical control

The first technical inspection bureaus (notably Sécuritas and Veritas for its building inspection branch) were set up in 1928 and 1929 in the wake of building collapses that claimed many victims.

Architects' and contractors' insurers, anxious to be informed about the risks they might be required to cover, intended to make their guarantees conditional on a technical inspection of the work: the reports drawn up by the technical inspectors enabled them to exclude foreseeable risks from their cover, as evidenced by the reservations mentioned therein.

The main task of the technical inspectors was therefore to inform building insurers about the risks to be covered, and mainly about the decennial liability risks affecting the stability and durability of the structures.

In this way, technical controllers contributed to the standardization of insured risk.

Act no. 78-12 of January 4, 1978 on liability and insurance in the construction industry, as last amended by an ordinance of June 8, 2005, all codified in the French Building Code (CCH), gave status to technical inspection and broke new ground by making technical inspectors stakeholders and responsible parties in the act of building.

Technical inspection of buildings is regulated in France by the Code de la Construction et de l'Habitation (CCH). It was recently extended with the inclusion in the CCH of Ordinance no. 2022-1076 of July 29, 2022, aimed at strengthening the control of construction rules, issued in application of the law of August 22, 2021 on combating climate disruption and strengthening resilience to its effects. The main focus of this activity is on diagnostics, compliance with certain rules, hazard prevention and verification of conformity.