Thanks for the replies,very helpful,i havejust looked at the paperwork from SPANC regarding the report from the local water company,s inspection and it states"installation non conforme,travaux obligatoires sous 4 ans ou dans un délai de 1 an en cas de vente".Other than that it just states about the 110euro fee for the inspection which we have had and duly paid to the local tax office,so already there are three different admin bodies involved.So,having read George1,s reply,i need to contact SPANC for a list of companies that can produce an étude,i am assuming that there is also no kind of financial help available with the hefty costs involved,thanks again to all who replied.
This is an old post )2016) from a different forum United in France but the information may still be relevant about the financial aspects. You’ll need to check.
This publication may also be of interest:
That seems to be very standard. Ours had some changes that were required but they weren’t a real stopper so we just had the bit about doing the work within a year if we sold up, plus the inspection fee of course.
On the other hand, a friend of ours had exactly the same message as you - 4 years to do it, or one year if selling. Interestingly, her fosse passed the inspection last time so she is pursuing things locally at the moment in order to understand why that should be. We think it may be because there is a new development next door to her and mains sanitation was installed for that, so they want her to go on the mains now. Best to ask for advice though…
None of this constitutes a fine, so you have 4 years to get it all sorted - no problem 
@graham I think that’s fair comment on SPANC. I definitely do not envy them in what must be an utterly thankless task They are trying to ‘encourage’ often reluctant property owners to spend really quite substantial sums on upgrading something that might appear of little benefit to the latter. They are also quite possibly under resourced, if this area is at all typical, in that they outsource much of their inspection activities to commercial agents.
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be careful what you wish for 
Their funding comes from the likes of you and me 
As I understand things… this means that the Purchaser has 1 year to do the work…
That is… 1 year from the actual Purchase… and this is why the cost of a Fosse is usually allowed for in the asking price…
The Seller has to notify the Purchaser of the situation…
@Euro50 You asked about financial help with installation. The answer is that help is currently at the ‘beer and fags’ level, rather than champagne and cigars… for us, help was useful, but fairly limited, given the overall installation costs in our case were about 11,000€.
The help could include:-
Possibility of a reduction in TVA (installation and/or labour)
Nil interest loan
Subsidies of up to 1500€ in some cases, locally dependent (apparently partly funded by fines from non compliance -if our installers are to be believed!)
Your chosen installer will know exactly what is currently available when you seek a devis…