The handover report (procès-verbal de réception): the annotated template, reservations, and the pitfalls to avoid

Why is the handover the most important act of the project?

Because all of French construction law revolves around it. The handover is defined by Article 1792-6 of the French Civil Code: the act by which the client (the maître d'ouvrage, the project owner) declares that they accept the works, with or without reservations. It is called for by the more diligent party (in practice, the company that has finished) and takes place with both parties involved (contradictoirement), that is, present or duly summoned in writing.

Its effects are massive. On the date of the handover: the statutory warranties start running (one-year completion, good working order, ten-year structural liability; see the table below); custody of the works passes to the client, and with it the risks; apparent defects not covered by a reservation are deemed accepted, meaning the defect that was seen but not written down can no longer be held against the company; and the balance of the contract falls due, subject to any agreed retention. A project without a formal handover is a project where nobody knows when the warranties began, nor what was accepted.

For the interior designer, this moment has a name in engagements structured along the lines of the CFAI contract: the AOR phase, assistance with handover operations. You are not a party to the act: the handover plays out between the client and each company. But you are the one who prepares it, organises the inspection, spots the defects and drafts the report that the parties sign. On the general framework of the engagement, see our guide to the interior design contract.

With or without reservations: the three outcomes of a handover

• Handover without reservations. The works are compliant and complete: the report records it, the warranties run, the balance is due. This is the outcome to aim for. It is prepared in advance, with a pre-handover inspection a few days earlier (the "opérations préalables à la réception"), which leaves the company time to touch up the finishes before the big day.
• Handover with reservations. The works are usable but remedial items remain due: scratches, adjustments, finishes, a fixture on back-order. Each defect is recorded in the report with a deadline for remedial work. The handover is acquired, the warranties run; only the listed items remain to be closed out.
• Refusal of handover. The works are not in a state to be accepted: unfinished, or affected by defects that prevent normal use of the premises. The refusal is set out in writing, defect by defect, and a new date is fixed. To be handled with precision: refusing a handover over finishes amounts to abuse, and a judge can pronounce the handover in court (réception judiciaire).

On a renovation project run under separate trade contracts (the normal case in interior design, where the client contracts directly with each company), the handover is pronounced trade package by trade package: one report per company, each at the end of its own works. It is the natural extension of the award logic described in our guide to tendering to contractors.

The report template, section by section

A handover report fits on one to two pages. Here is what it must contain, and why:

1. Identification. Site address, client, company concerned (company name, SIRET registration number), trade package or contract covered, reference of the accepted quote. A report that is ambiguous about its scope protects nobody.
2. Date and attendees. The date of the inspection is the date that starts the warranties. It must be unambiguous. Record who attended and, if a summoned party is absent, the written summons that was sent to them.
3. The decision. One explicit sentence, only one: handover without reservations / handover with reservations / reasoned refusal. The effective date of the handover if it differs from the date of the inspection.
4. The list of reservations. Numbered, each in this format: precise location + observed defect + expected remedial work + deadline. "Reservation no. 3 (kitchen, splashback): silicone joint not executed over 1.2 linear metres along the worktop. To be remedied within 15 days." A vague reservation ("finishes to be reviewed") is an unenforceable reservation.
5. Appendices. Dated photos of the defects under reservation and, where relevant, the list of documents handed over or expected: manuals, maintenance certificates, a simplified as-built dossier (DOE).
6. Financial terms. A reminder of what the contract provides: the balance falls due, and if a retention (retenue de garantie) was stipulated in the accepted quote (capped at 5 % by the French law of 16 July 1971 where provided for), the terms of its release once the reservations are lifted.
7. Signatures. The client and the company sign; the designer, present under the AOR phase, is mentioned as assisting the client. One copy per party, on the day.

The warranties that start on the day of the handover

This table is what explains the point of checking insurance certificates before the works: a ten-year liability policy valid at the opening of the site, covering the right declared activities. The reflex is detailed in our checklist for vetting a contractor before hiring.

Reservations: wording them, tracking them, lifting them

The quality of a handover is judged by the precision of its reservations. Three disciplines:

• Word them tightly. One reservation = one defect, located and measurable. No "miscellaneous", no "to be reviewed". If ten defects affect the living-room paintwork, that is ten lines. That is what makes it possible to record the remediation of each one.
• Track them in writing. Each reservation carries its own deadline; when it falls due, you inspect, you chase in writing, or you serve formal notice. The one-year completion warranty provides a one-year framework, but it does not excuse you from steering: a reservation left dormant for eleven months gets lifted painfully.
• Lift them formally. The lifting is recorded in a reservation-clearance report (procès-verbal de levée de réserves), same logic, same precision: reservation by reservation, remedial work observed, date, signatures. That is the document that closes out the handover, releases any retention, and cleanly closes the trade package.

The pitfalls that get paid for years later

• The tacit handover. The client moves in, pays the balance, nobody signs anything. French case law can treat this as a handover: the warranties run from a date nobody fixed, and without a single reservation on record. The classic trap of residential renovation, and the first thing the designer must protect their client from.
• Visible defects without reservations. On handover day, what is seen and not written down is accepted. Hence the pre-handover inspection: you do not discover a project on the day you accept it.
• Additional works "to be settled at the end". A wall opened up turns out to be load-bearing, and suddenly there is a structural engineer, a steel beam — thousands of euros outside the initial quote. If those works were not recorded in writing at the moment they were decided, the handover becomes a negotiating table: the client discovers the bill, the company digs in, and the report waits. Every additional work is approved as it arises, in writing, never on the last day. That is as much a matter of site supervision as of handover.
• Confusing the pre-handover inspection with the handover. The preliminary operations (the technical walkthrough that lists what remains to be done) are not the handover. Only one date starts the warranties: the date of the report. Naming each visit clearly in the site meeting minutes prevents a pre-handover visit from being requalified.
• Accepting a separate-trades project "globally". Each company has its own contract, its own end of works, its own warranties: a single report signed three weeks after the first tradesperson has left creates three contestable warranty start dates. One trade package, one report.

So, what about Nodal?

Nodal does not draft the report for you. It makes sure you arrive at the handover with nothing to reconstruct. The pipeline moves forward on evidence: every validated step leaves a dated trace, additional works are approved as they arise from the client portal (a time-stamped agreement, line by line, never a settling of accounts on the last day), and the per-package tracking shows at all times who has finished what.

On handover day, everything is already in writing: the scope of each trade package comes from the tender, mid-project changes are on record, and the project history serves as a shared memory between you, the client and the companies. The report merely records what has been steered.

Article published on August 24, 2026. This professional overview describes the general framework of the handover of works on private projects under French law (French Civil Code, Article 1792-6), current as at that date; it does not constitute legal advice. Contentious situations — refusal of handover, court-pronounced handover, enforcement of the warranties — are a matter for a construction-law lawyer.

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