A turnkey home is a project entrusted in its entirety to one company: designing the drawings, handling the administrative formalities, building, then handing over a house ready to move into. You set out your brief and your budget; the company then organises every stage through to handing over the keys.
This differs from self-building or from coordinating separate trades yourself, where the homeowner has to make groundworker, bricklayer, carpenter and dry-liner work together, with the delays, defects at the interfaces and disputes that this can entail.
The first advantage is practical: a single point of contact follows your project. That person coordinates the various trades, schedules the works and answers your questions. If something unexpected happens on site, you know immediately who to speak to, and no one can pass responsibility on to another company.
Support also covers the administrative formalities, starting with the permis de construire, French planning permission: putting the application together (site location plan, block plan, drawings of the building), submitting it to the mairie and following the case through.
The turnkey approach is based on a detailed quote drawn up before work starts. Every item is identified and priced, which limits unpleasant surprises during the works and makes it easier to arrange finance with your bank.
The programme is set out in the same way: earthworks, foundations, structural work, making the building watertight and airtight, then second-fix works and finishes follow one another to a schedule held by a single company, which cuts the dead time between trades.
A new house delivered by a professional is covered by the French statutory warranties: the garantie de parfait achèvement, for one year, covering defects noted at handover or during the following year; the garantie biennale, for two years, on fittings that can be removed without damaging the structure; and the garantie décennale, for ten years, covering damage that affects the soundness of the building or makes it unfit for its purpose.
The assurance dommages-ouvrage, taken out before work begins, means repairs falling under the garantie décennale are paid for quickly, without waiting for a court to establish liability. MCI Construction works with all of these covers in place: décennale, dommages-ouvrage, parfait achèvement and biennale.
Turnkey does not mean a house from a catalogue. The drawings are prepared around your plot, your way of living and your budget: orientation, room sizes, number of bedrooms, garage, terraces. The design takes account of the commune's planning rules and of the constraints specific to the plot.
Every new build must also comply with RE2020, the French environmental regulation, mandatory since 2022: insulation performance, summer comfort, a real issue in the Aude, and the environmental impact of materials. These requirements are built into the design, not patched up at the end of the job.
MCI Construction carries out the structural work with its own teams and coordinates the other trades through to handover. The company works in Narbonne and the Grand Narbonne, in the Corbières and the Minervois, along the Aude coast and as far as Béziers.
Planning a turnkey home? MCI Construction will look at your plot and your brief, then draw up a free quote.