Quebec real estate glossary · French to English
Inspection préachat = Pre-purchase inspection. It is the pre-purchase inspection, or home inspection. It is what turns a defect from latent into apparent.
En bref, en français : L'inspection préachat se dit pre-purchase inspection, ou home inspection. C'est elle qui fait basculer un défaut de « caché » à « apparent ».
Educaloi's English capsule for buyers is titled "Doing a Home Inspection Before You Buy". In brokerage practice the condition written into the promise to purchase is the pre-purchase inspection.
Its legal weight comes straight from article 1726 of the Civil Code: an apparent defect is one "that can be perceived by a prudent and diligent buyer without the need to resort to an expert". Skipping the inspection does not make a defect latent. It makes your position weaker.
What it is not
- Not a certificate of location, which is the land surveyor's document.
- Not an appraisal, which is a value opinion.
- Not a guarantee that nothing will ever fail.
Vocabulary for the report
Building inspector, water infiltration, French drain, foundation, sewer backup, vermiculite. Those are the terms most likely to appear in an English report on a Quebec home, and each has a French counterpart your seller will use.
Say it in a sentence
The word on its own is rarely the problem. These are the sentences you will actually hear, and what they become in English.
| Vous entendrez | In English |
|---|---|
| L'inspection préachat a révélé une infiltration. | The pre-purchase inspection revealed water infiltration. |
| Ma promesse est conditionnelle à l'inspection. | My promise is conditional on inspection. |
| L'inspecteur recommande un test de pyrite. | The inspector recommends a pyrite test. |
The mistake we see most often
The mistake is waiving it to win a bidding war. In a competitive market buyers drop the inspection condition to look stronger, and it works, right up until the report they never ordered would have found the thing that costs forty thousand dollars. If you must compete, shorten the delay or arrange the inspection before submitting, rather than removing the condition altogether.
Where this fits in a Quebec transaction
Buying or selling in Quebec means signing documents that exist in both languages, written under civil law rather than common law. A word-for-word translation is sometimes right and sometimes actively misleading. The full list is in our Quebec real estate glossary, French to English.
Related terms
- latent defects in English
- legal warranty in English
- certificate of location in English
- sewer camera inspection
Questions we get asked
What is an inspection préachat in English?
A pre-purchase inspection, also called a home inspection. It is normally written as a condition into the promise to purchase.
Is it mandatory?
It is not required by law, but it is standard practice and it directly affects your position if a problem surfaces later.
Does an inspection protect me against latent defects?
It protects you differently: it reveals what a prudent and diligent buyer should see. Anything genuinely hidden remains covered by the legal warranty, unless the sale excludes it.
Published by the Loaa & Manseur team, number one team at RE/MAX Platine in 2024 and 2025. We work in French and in English. Tell us about your project.