You live in London, New York, or Tel Aviv, and you own a one-bedroom in Paris that was supposed to pay for itself. Then the rent stops. One month becomes three, your messages go unanswered, and a neighbour tells you the tenant is still living there. Your first instinct may be to fly over, change the locks, or cut off the electricity until the arrears are paid. In France, every one of those moves is illegal, and each of them can cost you damages while the tenant stays put. France protects residential tenants with one of the strongest shields in Europe, and eviction is a court-driven procedure measured in months, often more than a year, with a winter standstill built into the calendar. This guide walks you through the two lawful routes a foreign landlord actually has: terminating the lease through the courts for unpaid rent, and recovering the flat by formal notice to sell it or repossess it. Every French term is explained at first use, every decisive rule is tied to the statute or court decision behind it, and every step notes what to do from abroad.
I. Terminating the Lease for Unpaid Rent: the Formal Notice, the Two-Month Clock, and the Summons
A. The Commandement de Payer, the Two-Month Clock, and the Summons That Must Warn the Prefect
Under a French residential lease, paying the rent and charges on the agreed dates is the tenant’s core obligation, and the lease almost always contains a clause résolutoire (termination clause) stating that the lease ends automatically if the rent goes unpaid. That clause is powerful, but it never operates by itself. The Third Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation recalls the mechanism in these terms: “toute clause prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit du contrat de location pour défaut de paiement du loyer ou des charges aux termes convenus ou pour non-versement du dépôt de garantie ne produit effet que deux mois après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux” (Cass. 3rd civ., 16 Feb. 2011, No. 10-14.945). In plain English, a clause providing for automatic termination for failure to pay the rent or charges on the agreed terms, or for failure to pay the security deposit, takes effect only two months after a formal demand for payment that has gone unanswered. The starting gun of every eviction for arrears is therefore a commandement de payer (formal bailiff’s demand for payment), served by a bailiff, who since 2022 is called a commissaire de justice (judicial enforcement officer), which must expressly refer to the termination clause and reproduce the statutory two-month warning. A simple reminder letter, an email, or a phone call does not start the clock, no matter how far behind the tenant is.
Those two months are a grace period imposed by statute, not a negotiation. If the tenant pays everything owed within the period, including the costs of the demand, the clause never takes effect and the lease continues. If the tenant pays nothing, or pays only part of the arrears, the lease is terminated by operation of the clause at the end of the two months, but you still need a judge to say so. Only a court can formally record that the termination clause has taken effect, order the tenant to leave, and authorise forced enforcement. In practice, your enforcement officer serves the demand, waits out the two months, and then serves an assignation (court summons) asking the protection-litigation judge, the juge des contentieux de la protection, to record the termination, fix the debt, order eviction, and set an indemnité d’occupation (occupation payment) running from the termination date. From abroad, this entire sequence is handled through your enforcement officer and your lawyer: you sign nothing in person, but you must supply a precise statement of account, the lease, every receipt and reminder, and proof of the sums claimed, because the judge will verify the figures line by line.
Before that summons reaches the court, two prior notifications can destroy your case if they are missed, and both exist to give the public authorities a chance to help the tenant before the lease dies. First, where the tenant receives housing benefit, the summons must have been notified in advance to the departmental commission that administers the benefit. The Court of Cassation is uncompromising: “toute assignation tendant à la résiliation du bail doit être notifiée au préalable à la commission, peu important qu’elle ait été antérieurement saisie dans le cadre d’une précédente procédure” (Cass. 3rd civ., 18 June 2014, No. 13-15.049). In English, every summons seeking termination of the lease must first be notified to the commission, even if that commission was already seised in an earlier round of proceedings. A notification made for a previous discontinued case cannot be recycled, and forgetting this step makes the summons inadmissible. Second, and applicable in every case, the summons seeking confirmation of the termination must be notified to the préfet (State representative in the département) at least two months before the hearing. The Court states the rule bluntly: “Selon ce texte, à peine d’irrecevabilité de la demande, l’assignation aux fins de constat de la résiliation est notifiée à la diligence de l’huissier de justice au représentant de l’Etat dans le département, par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception, au moins deux mois avant l’audience” (Cass. 3rd civ., 9 Feb. 2022, No. 20-16.769). In English, on pain of inadmissibility, the summons must be notified by the enforcement officer to the State representative by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt at least two months before the hearing, so that the State can mobilise the social support bodies. The Court quashed an appeal decision that had been satisfied with a six-month gap between service and the actual hearing date, holding that the judges should have checked whether the summons had in fact been issued for an earlier hearing. For a foreign landlord, the lesson is concrete: calendar discipline is everything, and your lawyer must verify the hearing date written on the summons against the notification date, because a postponement does not repair a short notice period.
Three practical warnings follow from this first stage. Keep a running statement of account from the first missed payment, because the judge will want the exact arrears, the charges, and the costs separated. Never accept vague partial payments without a dated receipt stating what they cover, since undocumented cash fragments the debt and complicates the two-month calculation. And never resort to self-help: changing the locks, removing the front door, cutting power or water, or moving the tenant’s belongings out while the procedure runs exposes you to damages and can restart the whole dispute on worse terms. The lawful pressure you can apply is the procedure itself, served correctly and on time. Our overview of how these disputes are handled from Paris is set out on our French real estate law page for international owners.
B. What the Judge Can Still Do: Suspend the Clause, Grant Time, and Set a Repayment Plan
Even when the two months have expired unpaid, the lease is not necessarily dead. The French judge has a statutory power to rescue a tenant who can realistically pay, and this power can be invoked at any point in the proceedings. The 2011 decision cited above quashed an appeal court that had declared a tenant’s late request inadmissible, holding that “aucun délai n’est imposé au preneur pour saisir le juge d’une demande de délais de paiement et de suspension des effets de la clause résolutoire” (Cass. 3rd civ., 16 Feb. 2011, No. 10-14.945). In English, no time limit is imposed on the tenant for asking the judge for payment delays and suspension of the effects of the termination clause. A tenant who applies for time even after the two-month period, including on appeal, must be heard. The judge may grant the delays of his or her own motion too, without any request at all.
The delays themselves are governed by Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code, in force, which provides: “Le juge peut, compte tenu de la situation du débiteur et en considération des besoins du créancier, reporter ou échelonner, dans la limite de deux années, le paiement des sommes dues.” The judge may, taking into account the debtor’s situation and the creditor’s needs, defer or spread payment of the sums due over up to two years. During the court-ordered period, enforcement is suspended and late penalties do not accrue, and any contract term to the contrary is deemed unwritten. In eviction practice this becomes a repayment schedule added to the current rent: the tenant must pay the monthly rent plus an instalment of the arrears, and as long as the schedule is honoured, the effects of the termination clause are suspended and the lease survives. If the tenant defaults on the schedule, the termination takes effect and eviction can proceed. The general contract law backdrop confirms this judicial latitude, since Article 1228 of the Civil Code states: “Le juge peut, selon les circonstances, constater ou prononcer la résolution ou ordonner l’exécution du contrat, en accordant éventuellement un délai au débiteur, ou allouer seulement des dommages et intérêts.” The judge may record or order termination, order performance while granting the debtor time, or award only damages, depending on the circumstances.
Once the lease is terminated, the tenant’s continued presence is no longer occupation under a lease but occupation without right, and the economics change accordingly. Article 1229 of the Civil Code explains that termination ends the contract for the future, while occupation already enjoyed is not undone, which is why the judge sets an occupation payment, normally equal to the former rent plus charges, running until the tenant actually leaves. That payment is a debt you can enforce against wages, bank accounts, or a guarantor, but it is only worth what the debtor can pay, so suing a caution (guarantor) or calling a guarantee such as Visale alongside the eviction action is standard practice when a solvent guarantor exists. Separately, the judge who orders eviction may grant renewable grace periods before the tenant must leave whenever rehousing cannot happen in normal conditions, under Article L412-3 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures: “Le juge peut accorder des délais renouvelables aux occupants de lieux habités ou de locaux à usage professionnel, dont l’expulsion a été ordonnée judiciairement, chaque fois que le relogement des intéressés ne peut avoir lieu dans des conditions normales.” The judge may grant renewable time limits to occupants of residential premises whose eviction has been judicially ordered, whenever their rehousing cannot take place in normal conditions. For the landlord living abroad, the strategy at the hearing is therefore to arrive with clean accounts, a realistic position on a repayment schedule, and evidence of the tenant’s good or bad faith, because a tenant who never paid anything and never proposed anything gets far less sympathy than one who fell behind after a job loss and resumed partial payment.
II. From the Court Order to Getting Your Keys Back: Enforcement Delays, the Winter Truce, and the Notice Route
A. The Leave Order, Hardship Extensions, and the Winter Truce That Freezes Every Eviction
Winning the judgment is the middle of the story, not the end. The court decision records the termination, orders the tenant to vacate, and authorises eviction, but actual removal follows the enforcement track of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, and that track is full of mandatory waiting periods. The first is the two-month period after the commandement de quitter les lieux (order to vacate served by the enforcement officer). Article L412-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, in force, provides: “Si l’expulsion porte sur un lieu habité par la personne expulsée ou par tout occupant de son chef, elle ne peut avoir lieu qu’à l’expiration d’un délai de deux mois qui suit le commandement, sans préjudice des dispositions des articles L. 412-3 à L. 412-7 .” Where the eviction concerns a place inhabited by the person being evicted or by anyone occupying through them, it cannot take place until two months after the order to vacate. The judge can reduce or remove this period only in narrow cases, notably where rehousing steps failed because of the tenant or where the occupant entered by force or fraud, and a tenant acting in bad faith, as found by the judge, loses the protection entirely. Where eviction would have exceptionally harsh consequences, for example because of the season or the weather, Article L412-2 lets the judge extend the two-month period by up to three additional months.
Then comes the rule that surprises foreign owners most: the trêve hivernale (winter truce). Article L412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, in force, states: “il est sursis à toute mesure d’expulsion non exécutée à la date du 1er novembre de chaque année jusqu’au 31 mars de l’année suivante, à moins que le relogement des intéressés soit assuré dans des conditions suffisantes respectant l’unité et les besoins de la famille.” All eviction measures not yet carried out by the 1st of November each year are stayed until the 31st of March of the following year, unless the occupants are rehoused in decent conditions preserving family unity and needs. The official service-public explainer confirms the current application: the truce runs from the 1st of November 2025 to the 31st of March 2026, a landlord cannot carry out an eviction during that window, and only narrow exceptions apply, such as squatters who forced entry, persons rehoused adequately, or eviction from the family home ordered by the family court in a protection context (service-public.fr, Winter break 2025-2026). The same page confirms two points owners often misunderstand: the rent debt survives the truce in full, and the truce has been extended to gas and electricity cut-offs, which are also prohibited during the period. If your two-month leave period expires on the 15th of November, enforcement simply waits until April, and there is no lawful shortcut.
After the truce and the waiting periods, physical removal requires the assistance of the police, the concours de la force publique (requisition of police assistance), which your enforcement officer requests from the préfet. If assistance is refused, usually for reasons of public order or social risk, the removal waits and the question of compensation by the State arises, which is why landlords ask their counsel about that remedy early rather than discovering it after a refusal. Realistic budgeting follows from all of this: from the first missed rent to the actual departure, twelve to twenty-four months is common in the Paris region when the tenant uses every procedural protection, and the arrears keep growing meanwhile. Insure the risk where you can, through unpaid-rent insurance or a guarantee taken at the signing of the lease, keep every document in one file your lawyer can use from day one, and never sign a private side agreement cancelling the procedure without a dated written record of what was paid and what remains due.
B. The Other Way Back: Taking the Flat Back by Notice to Sell or Repossess, and the 2025-2026 Traps
Eviction for arrears is not the only route. A landlord can also recover the property at the end of the lease by serving a congé (notice to quit), either a congé pour vendre (notice to sell) or a congé pour reprise (notice to repossess for personal occupation), and this route is often combined with, or used as an alternative to, the arrears procedure when the lease is near expiry. For an unfurnished letting, the official service-public guidance states that the tenant must receive the notice at least six months before the end of the lease, and the notice must state its reason and, for repossession, the name, address, and relationship of the person who will live there (service-public.fr, landlord’s notice requirements). A notice that is late, vague, or served by ordinary post instead of the required formal channels is void, and the lease then renews. Recent Court of Cassation decisions add four traps that foreign owners, heirs, and family co-owners fall into regularly.
The first trap concerns repossession when circumstances change during the notice period. The Court recalls that a landlord’s notice must state its ground and, for repossession, the beneficiary’s identity and link with the landlord, and that the reality of the repossession is assessed in the person of that beneficiary. In April 2026 it drew the consequence: “le décès de celui-ci, survenu avant la date d’expiration du délai de préavis, prive d’effet le congé aux fins de reprise” (Cass. 3rd civ., 16 Apr. 2026, No. 24-13.191). In English, the death of the designated beneficiary before the end of the notice period deprives the repossession notice of effect. The landlady had given notice to repossess for herself, died during the notice period, and her son tried to take over the notice for his own occupation. The Court quashed the appeal decision that had allowed it: the heir inherits the property, not the personal notice, and a fresh notice in the heir’s own name is required. If you buy a tenanted flat whose seller has just served notice, or if you inherit one mid-procedure, check in whose name the notice was given before spending money on the next step.
The second trap concerns the notice to sell given by co-owners. A notice to sell is legally an offer of sale to the tenant, who holds a pre-emption right at the stated price: “le congé vaut offre de vente au profit du locataire” (Cass. 3rd civ., 23 Jan. 2025, No. 23-21.610). In English, the notice counts as an offer of sale to the tenant. In July 2026 the Court added that such a notice is a disposal of co-owned property requiring every co-owner’s consent: “le congé pour vendre doit être délivré avec le consentement unanime de tous les indivisaires” (Cass. 3rd civ., 2 July 2026, No. 25-13.188). In English, the notice to sell must be issued with the unanimous consent of all co-owners. A notice signed by most of the heirs but without one sister’s agreement is void, and the defect is a substantive irregularity that the tenant can raise without proving any personal harm. The January 2025 decision makes the twin point: where co-owners hide behind a property company, the courts must verify each individual co-owner’s actual consent rather than inferring it from shareholdings. Foreign families who hold a Paris flat in indivision (co-ownership after inheritance) should therefore collect the written consent of every heir before serving notice, since one missing signature kills the whole procedure. The statutory background is Article 815-3 of the Civil Code, under which acts of disposal over co-owned property require the consent of all co-owners except where needed to pay the co-ownership’s debts and charges.
The third trap concerns split ownership. Where a property is held in usufruit (life interest or usufruct) and nue-propriété (bare ownership), only the life tenant, as the landlord entitled to the use of the property, can defend a repossession notice in court: “seul l’usufruitier, en vertu de son droit de jouissance sur le bien dont la propriété est démembrée, peut, en sa qualité de bailleur, agir en validité du congé pour reprise” (Cass. 3rd civ., 26 Jan. 2022, No. 20-20.223). In English, only the life tenant, by virtue of the right of enjoyment over the split property, may act as landlord to defend the validity of the repossession notice. An action brought by the bare owner alone is inadmissible, and a merely supporting intervention by the life tenant does not cure it. Check the ownership structure before suing: if the flat is split between a surviving spouse and children, the writ must be framed around the right plaintiff.
The fourth point is more encouraging for genuine owners. A landlord who repossesses to live in the flat personally, including to reduce housing costs before retirement, acts legitimately even without financial distress. In July 2025 the Court approved an appeal decision that had verified, through the owner’s tenant status elsewhere, falling income near retirement age, and modest other revenues, the real and serious character of the intention to occupy the flat as a main home at the date of the notice (Cass. 3rd civ., 3 July 2025, No. 24-11.504). The intention is judged when notice is given, and a later delay in moving in, explained by the tenant’s own court challenge, does not prove fraud. Conversely, a notice served as a pretext, for example with an absurd asking price designed to defeat the tenant’s pre-emption right, exposes the landlord to annulment and damages, since Article 1240 of the Civil Code provides: “Tout fait quelconque de l’homme, qui cause à autrui un dommage, oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrivé à le réparer.” Any act whatever that causes damage to another obliges the person by whose fault it occurred to repair it. Tenants who resist abusively can also be ordered to pay damages, but the landlord who fabricates a ground pays more often. For owners based in the Paris region, the practical checklist before serving notice is therefore short: correct plaintiff, unanimous co-owner consent in writing, exact statutory content and deadline, service by the enforcement officer, and a genuine, documented reason. Each of these points can be prepared from abroad with a Paris enforcement officer and counsel, which is how international owners normally proceed through our Paris real estate practice for foreign clients.
Conclusion
Evicting a non-paying tenant in France is a procedure, not a confrontation. The commandement de payer starts a two-month clock that no reminder letter can replace, the summons must warn the housing commission and the préfet within strict deadlines on pain of inadmissibility, and the judge can suspend everything for up to two years if the tenant can realistically pay. Even with a judgment in hand, the two-month leave period, possible hardship extensions, and the winter truce from November to March stand between you and the keys, which is why twelve to twenty-four months from the first missed rent to the actual departure is the honest planning range. The notice route to sell or repossess runs on equally strict rails after the 2025 and 2026 decisions: the right plaintiff, unanimous co-owner consent, a genuine reason documented at the date of notice, and a beneficiary who must still qualify when the notice takes effect. None of this requires living in France, but all of it requires paper served correctly and on time. Start the formal procedure at the second missed payment rather than the sixth, keep every account and receipt in one file, and put a Paris enforcement officer and counsel in charge before the arrears become unrecoverable.
Need a quick opinion on your case
If your tenant has stopped paying or your notice to quit is facing a challenge, a telephone consultation with a lawyer from our firm within 48 hours can clarify your options and your deadlines. Call us at +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through our contact page with your lease, your statement of account, and the documents you have received.