It is a small pavilion built in 2003 in Fayel, a village of just over 200 inhabitants a few kilometers from Compiègne in the Oise.
Mera and Aurélien, two thirty-somethings now parents of three children, bought it at the end of 2017. But this nurse and this engineer were far from imagining the trouble they were going to find themselves in.
Summer 2020 had started well.
The couple celebrates their civil marriage on the terrace.
Before going on vacation, with a light mind.
“When we came back, we found pieces of ceiling on the sideboard,” Mera recalls.
Two sections of walls in the living room were actually cracked from one end to the other at the ceiling.
» And it doesn't stop there: "I wanted to open the French window, but it was very difficult", continues her husband Aurélien.
Walls, tiles, door and window frames, even the terrace and the surrounding wall, the whole house is cracked.
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The couple alerts their insurance.
But for the damage linked to the shrinkage-swelling of clays to possibly be taken care of, the municipality must first benefit from a Natural Disaster Order (Cat-Nat).
The request is made, the geological data, from the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM), and soil humidity, provided by Météo France, are analyzed by the interministerial commission, but the ax falls on May 18, 2021. The Fayel does not benefit from recognition.
“Le Meux, the town next door, was classified as a Cat-Nat drought and not us,” says Mera, who still can’t believe it.
“The damage observed does not influence the State’s decision”
She and her husband hire lawyers, carry out expert assessments and initiate informal and then contentious appeals against this decision.
Without success.
“Experts have attested that it was due to drought, but the damage observed does not influence the State's decision,” Mera laments again.
One of them even goes so far as to suppose that the cracks that appeared in 2020 could be the consequence of the drought of 2017, which was the subject of a Cat-Nat decree in 2018. “But we have not never been able to prove it,” adds Aurélien who explains that, in any case, the victims only had ten days (that’s thirty days since 2023) to report the damage to the insurer after the publication of the decree .
Between anxieties, sleepless nights and aborted appeals, the couple also had to pay 8,500 euros to install two huge props at the back of the house in order to be able to stay there safely.
That's a bill of more than 12,000 euros including legal and expert fees.
“The rejection of our last appeal was a big slap in the face”
“It’s very hard to plan because the house is currently unsaleable,” explains the father who has just ordered a geotechnical study billed at 8,000 euros.
Enough to specify the nature and amount of the work necessary for the consolidation and restoration of the pavilion, estimated at approximately 100,000 euros.
A colossal sum when they are far from having finished repaying their mortgage.
“I was hopeful that we would win our case with all that we spent on expertise and legal fees,” Mera continues.
But the rejection of our last appeal at the beginning of February was a big blow to us.
»
Also readDrought: where are the houses most exposed to the risk of cracks?
The family, who had notably written to the Élysée, without obtaining a response, launched an Instagram account (@sos_maison_formoso) to alert people about their situation.
“We want to be heard, we need help,” says Mera, whose sister-in-law even created a Leetchi fund to finance the work.
The family has already raised more than 8,000 euros.