If it ain't broke don't fix it! I am sure there won't be a problem now, you can't be made to change it otherwise that would apply to half the homes in France! However it will be a problem if you should decide to sell your house.
Hope that helps
Perhaps there is different interpretation of the fast changing rules, I can agree with Brian and we are in Dept 49. Our mayor is imposing replacing non conforming, every property was mandatory inspected and the report drawn up, the whole village failed! So now we are all under pressure - some taking it on board more readily than others! and the mayor can be fined for any property not compliant.
Our house is on the border of 2 villages, the property next door (in the next village) has not been inspected, have no idea and under no pressure and their effluent runs down into our ditches!
Our Mayor insists on following all works to the house through the full system down to a scale drawing on white paper with full photographs and explanation of how it will look for a tiny bin store- the last mayor was happy with a nod over a game of boules and a scribble on a beer mat :)
Bit OTT Simon?? ;-)
well we have been informed by the Notaire of the fact and by 2 other notaires of the same in the last 12 months as we bought another property ..... stop scare mongering brian unless you really know what you are talking about from experience ......you seem to throw a lot of rubbish advise around on here that you know nothing about , stop it !!!!
They can Simon and they do. The threat of a fine for not doing it and still having to do it has been used. My OH has had one house where the hussiers went in to collect items to the value of the fine because the people could not afford it unless they sold the house. She also knows from the SPANC inspector that a new wave of maires is enforcing obligation to change and also insurance companies will find anything non-conform such as a fosse as a reason for not making payouts. It may have been that way but things are changing fast at present and as Debra says, maires can be fined as well, not just for the sanitation system but any non-conform issues that are within the range of things they should have recorded. We also have, for instance, some asbestos and under the amiante rules as soon as it is unstable the maire can insist we get rid of it.
They cant force house owners to change the foss .....people dont have the money ...they just advise that it is non-complient and you can allow for it if you sell the house ...its not a problem you need to worry about ....if you have 5k ,,,then get it done but it isnt compulsory .....its just a "jobs for the boy" french thing
Debra, go to Useful Links/Property and scroll down to the section on septic tanks. There are a lot of useful links there.
My OH who is a part-time agent finds that if the assessement by the services d’eau potable et d’assainissement and local SPANC say it must all be replaced then most French buyers demand the vendor have it done, foreigners eventually find out, often from notaires, that it should be done and only a few who decide that a house is absolutely the one they want at all cost and have the budget will do it. She has seen that where a fosse is non-conform and is known to be to the maire that there is quite a fuss and the vendor will be all but forced to have the work done. If they cannot afford that then they are often forced to get a devis, reduce their price by more than that some and allow the work to be done when the sale is completed, whereby the buyer pays and has the paperwork and warranty in their name.
It is a mess, the stories abound and with it there come so many variants on the regulations that nobody is entirely sure what is what. Regulations are changing fast and furiously too, there are new things included in the DPE this year that 'diagnostic de performance énergétique' should be changed given that energy is now only less than half of it. The way SPANC (or one of the other bodies where SPANC is not responsible) and services d’eau potable et d’assainissement are working is much the same, regular new things appear. Then there is l’etat de l’installation gaz, diagnostic électricité, diagnostic plomb (CREP),diagnostic amiante, then the ones for termites and capricorn for a certificat de non-infestation that is only valid three months! Bl**dy hell! They need a comprehensive survey system for sellers, buyers or whoever wants one done but at present if a house was built before X, no evidence of work, etc... then it becomes expensive and time consuming to have the lot done.
I have also heard this Simon - but in our hamlet it is definitely the case that the Mayor is now legally liable to ensure all waste complies. If not he can be personally fined. The old Mayor shrugged his shoulders, but the new, much younger, (ex military) mayor is onto it like a shot.
I guess it also makes a house more attractive to purchasers if the work is done already :)
There is a barn conversion being done five minutes walk down the road. I kind of know the people, at least because the man is a local secondhand book seller at local markets who I occasionally buy from. The entire family is quite 'alternative' and are living on site in a tent and makeshift shed whilst working on the barn.
For several days they have had diggers there but because I have not driven past I could only hear the work going on. This morning I passed on the way back from physio so stopped to say hello since the couple were standing just near the road. They have had something quite similar to the Condor system installed. It is a 4000 litre Clereflo (think that is how it is spelled) system which they said is like a light bulb shape and sounds much like the Condor version. The entire installation has cost them around €6800. As we plan, they are also installing a dry toilet, as a second one with the first attached to the system. That will be another €800 doing the work themselves.
If it helps, that is perhaps a useful guide price. They also say that the system they chose was allowed immediately by the local service public de l'eau, they being in the next commune who come under that rather than a SPANC, who also provided the survey for a few hundred euros. From our point of view, with the new local government shuffle, we are most likely to fall under that regime and will be OK. Another new build is being installed next week but I imagine a conventional fosse, but if not I'll ask them what they are having. The husband works for the local environmental department so gets diggers, roofers, plumbers and umpteen other things free, so their one would not be a guide price because of the unpaid stuff.
only a new purchaser of your house would have to replace the fosse not you ...we have just purchased a new house and had to do it, have it inspected and passed ...our existing house failed3 years ago and will only require replacement if we sell it by the new owners !
Ask SPANC, they will advise whether they can do full testing or require an independent survey. If the latter they will recommend who they prefer, which is handy because it still has to go back to them for the last word anyway.
Ask the maire, but the devis is none of their business. If you have a description of what you want installed (in French, of course) then show that as well. It will require a déclaration préalable, so not a big planning issue, but because modernisation is an obligation as long as what you want installed is allowed, you will get permission in a couple of weeks.
Otherwise as Willow says although SPANC can actually do the report rather than an independent inspector, but that is a 'will here' or 'never heard of that, so we don't do it here' matter as usual.
The independent inspector (who you pay about 350 euros) to do the full report soil samples and site tests pull all this together for you. S/he will obtain the cadestral plan, the boundaries of your land and what is around you, confirm the parcel no's with you, look at water on/around the land, wells, springs, type of soil, history of flooding to the area - extremely comprehensive. Will take photos, determine house occupancy and use, rooms and number of rooms that could be used as bedrooms. S/he will determine what type of waste management system is to be fitted and also exactly where it will be put. You can suggest your preferences and request that you are looking to install a water treatment plant such as Condor (there will be other types on the market, this was our preference - as WPL failed the registration process for France installations, I think one of the other systems is a Klargester) and is so much simpler and cheaper too. I have asked 'Billam' to send me a link to share for info and I will post it when it arrives.
We need filtration for any system because we have underground springs passing under our field into a small protected river 300m away at the bottom of the hill with dairy cattle pasture between. As for excavation, my friend along the way is still part owner of his old business that hires out agricultural and construction heavy machinery. I can get it discounted trade price with one of the firms people to do the digging. We found a place that is a local agent for Condor within 20km from us so no bother. It just happened that the site I gave gives all the spec in English rather than the French less detailed ones. As for French regulations, they vary between districts/cantons and even by maires although there is a national standard. If we keep our SPANC inspector and can afford it she would give the green light immediately because she has already approved them at houses OH has sold that had to be brought up to date.
Brian - don't need filtration with the CONDOR, yes SPANC have allowed it, it is fully approved and it conforms to all the French regs. I have been to see a brand new unit in June. Ours goes in, in Sept :)
We are using 'Billam' to put ours in - I really can recommend the work they do - clean, tidy, put covers down on the grass when digging holes with diggers, you can't tell they dug the garden out! Courteous and considerate and will work with you on a project. We had a huge problem with the water table and the inground pool - the guys worked flat out to meet the first guest arrival deadline and seriously you wouldn't know they had been. :) happy to give a link if you want to contact them :)
We would like exactly that. I have the link even: http://www.highspecworks.com/condor.html
Thanks Willow, I had forgotten what it is called so also the link I had bookmarked.
Have a look Debra, it is simply a question of us a) waiting for the new regime so that we can find out if they will allow it and b) affording it. Excavations and fitting, plus the filtration to ground would make it (at present) about €8000 for us.
Hi we had the local village SPANC septic tank survey charged around 50 euros that merely declared non conforming. Then we had the 'expert' out to do a full report cadestral, soil tests, occupancy, use, photographs etc etc 340 euros and this states EXACTLY what you can have and where it is to go. We are having a CONDOR water treatment plant. Shaped like a giant radish and goes in the ground - a complete water treatment plant which uses electric to swish everything around inside and what runs out is seemingly fit to drink (not that I will be testing it!) ours will exit to a village fosse/ditch. No mess, hardly any land used up, no parts that will wear out, emptied maybe once in 7-10 years. I think the unit is around 5,000 euros, then there is the digging hole and connecting up. Sounds good to me!
I am told that the responsibility rests with the Mayor who will be personally fined where there are houses with systems which are not conforming.
The woman from SPANC my OH knows says four and she is pretty straight, so that is where I take our 'guidance' from. I would rather that that is wrong and we have the double for sure.
Yes, the eco-pret seems right. Thus far it has been OK here but the reorganisation might change that, especially if bl**dy Veolia get a say in it. However, the canton next to us, St Alvere, absolutely forbids them at this point in time, so it is a 'who knows' thing during this transition is local government structures and which bits join and leave them. Like you, we find it worrying.
We are in the same situation. Owing to local reorganisation that will put us in a bigger canton, we are not sure whether we will stay under SPANC, Service du l'eau or Veolia. If the first then my OH is very friendly with the inspector and she is fair anyway. The man from the Service is a typical jobsworth functionary and the one from Veolia, no idea. We will not know until next year. The real issue will be that each of them has a different policy toward what we want which is replace our no-con fosse and the bac degraisseur that I install, plus extra filtration before it is in the distribution pipes in the ground and put in a dry toilet and a simple water purification system. The people building in front of that built it in early on with permission from SPANC but if the regime changes then they will have to get a more conventional system. So we are hanging fire. Either way, we know there are both grants and interest free loans for installation but we have been warned by the SPANC inspector that the fosse toutes eau system will be subject to changing regulations in a very few years. They are expensive to install and we are dreading the prospect of having to spend a small fortune to find ourselves paying out another a few years on.
What we know is that if one gets a points noir report that it means it must be replaced. If anyone attempts to sell a house then the DPE will show it and then the replacement will be obligatory before the sale can go through. Quite recently the regulations were amended so that the four years allowed for an 'urgent' replacement will be properly recorded and failure to comply will mean that the local SPANC (or whoever) will order the commune to have it done then charge the owner with admin fees on top. Not a nice prospect. Therefore French neighbours who say don't worry about it are living in the past and now we have to worry about it.
So, the starting point is to find out what kind of replacement system is allowed locally, go for the optimal rather than cheapest 'green' ones which will need a survey to ensure the whole geology and so on are suitable. Also discuss it at the mairie because ultimately it requires a déclaration préalable for replacement anyway. Depending on the strata it can cost between €4000 if self bought and installed in a straightforward piece of ground and we have heard of €18000 where bed rock had to be blasted and cleared with a heavy duty digger. We are somewhere between and it worries us.