Every answer and its explanation appears here once you have finished the path. Each one then links to the matching glossary entry, where the concept is set out in full with its worked example.
1. An owner worried about the state of finishing piles reserves onto the acceptance certificate, convinced this postpones the effects of acceptance. What does it actually get?
An acceptance, with all its effects already produced, plus a list of items to rectify. Reserving postpones nothing: custody has passed, the legal guarantees are running and the construction cover has ceased on the accepted part
The misreading treats a reserve as a partial refusal to accept, when it is an acceptance accompanied by a list. The three other answers decline that same misreading in three forms, and each is what a competent person who has never had to argue the point routinely says: suspended effects, reduced scope, deferred date. None matches the mechanism, and all three are expensive in the same direction, because they suggest one is keeping a protection one has already lost. While the list is being drawn up, the works have changed custodian and the construction policy has stopped covering them: whoever believes they are protecting themselves by reserving more is protected all the less for the time spent writing.
Glossary entry · assurance-construction2. A defect was visible on the day of the acceptance inspection and does not appear on the certificate. Fourteen months later, the owner wants it rectified. What is raised against it?
That acceptance extinguishes apparent defects: what was detectable by a normally diligent owner and was not reserved is covered by the acceptance, and the contractor is released on that basis
The extinction of apparent defects is an effect of acceptance itself and operates alone, without any period needing to run. The answer counting months holds on to an accurate fact, the perfect completion period is indeed one year, and draws from it a conclusion that hides the real reason: even claimed in the tenth month, this defect already ran into the acceptance. The one steering it toward the guarantee of proper functioning switches regimes without warrant, that guarantee covering separable elements rather than every apparent defect. The answer making extinction depend on the owner's technical competence is the most attractive because it sounds like a rule of evidence, but it inverts the test: apparent is not assessed against the actual competence of whoever was looking, it is assessed against what a normally diligent owner, assisted where appropriate, should have detected.
Glossary entry · vice-propre3. Two owners accept comparable works. One inspected alone, the other was assisted by a project manager and an inspection body. Which is in the better position on an unreserved defect, and why does the answer surprise?
The one who inspected alone: better surrounded, the other is deemed to have had to see more, and the scope of what is apparent widens with the quality of the assistance
The paradox is real and sticks poorly because it contradicts an intuition that is sound elsewhere, that one is better defended when better advised. Here the assistance moves the standard: what is apparent is measured against what a normally diligent owner, assisted where appropriate, should have detected, and the one who brought in a professional raises what was expected of it. The answer on dated evidence describes a genuine benefit of assistance, but it bears on defects that were RECORDED, not on the one none of the three saw. The one on recourse against the project manager names an action that exists, and that in practice is another set of proceedings, longer, against a professional liability insurer, not the equivalent of a reserve. The answer putting both owners on equal footing states the test as purely objective, which it is not: it is precisely the reference to a benchmark owner that moves the boundary.
Glossary entry · declaration-de-risque4. A contractor returns to site to lift a waterproofing reserve. Removing the covering, it pierces a duct and floods a plant room. How do the cost of the rectification and the cost of the flooding divide?
The rectification stays with the contractor, no policy funding the performance of a contractual obligation; the flooding is damage and typically falls under the maintenance period in its narrow form
One intervention produces two regimes, and that split is what must be seen: the contractor performs what it owed, which is not a claim, and in doing so causes damage, which is. The answer placing both under the maintenance period picks the right trigger and makes it say too much: the intervention triggers cover for what it DAMAGES, not for what it CORRECTS, otherwise every insurer would fund the end of every site. The one leaving both with the contractor applies an ancillary reasoning that has no place here and deprives the insured of cover it paid for. The answer invoking custody moves the flooding onto the owner's liability because it is custodian: custody did pass, but it does not make a custodian of someone subjected to the act of an identified third party, present and acting.
Glossary entry · dommage-materiel-direct5. On an accepted site, 180 reserves remain open twenty-two months later and the 5% retention has not been released. The owner sees this as protection. What is it failing to see?
That time is working against it: the guarantee periods are running without the delay extending them, and the characterization of the remaining items hardens as they age
A list of reserves is not a dead document but a running clock, and holding the retention makes that hard to read: holding money looks like holding time. Maintenance periods run, the decennial runs, and none is extended because rectification drags. The answer on release after one year asserts a firmer rule than reality, which depends on what the contract stipulates, and shifts the discussion to whether holding it is proper when the subject is its decreasing usefulness. The one limiting what the retention may fund invents a restriction on its use. The answer comparing the amount held to current costs names a real effect, but it is second order next to the one that counts: in the end the money held will be released or spent, while the guarantees will have expired.
Glossary entry · cautionnement-surety-bond