You bought the Lyon apartment as an investment, let it to a reliable tenant — and now your plans have changed. You want to sell while prices hold, or move into the flat yourself after years in London. English instinct says a landlord can simply decline to renew and take the property back. In France, that instinct fails: a residential lease does not end because its initial term expires. If you serve no valid notice, the tenancy is automatically renewed or tacitly continued, and the tenant stays. Recovering the flat requires a formal notice called a congé, served at least six months before the lease ends, stating one of only three permitted reasons — your decision to repossess (reprise), your decision to sell (vente), or a serious and legitimate ground — with strict compulsory contents. Get the wording wrong and the notice is void; invent a false reason and you face a criminal fine of up to 6,000 euros; sell to someone else on better terms without telling the tenant and the sale itself can be annulled. Since Brexit changed nothing in French tenancy law, British owners play by exactly the same rules as French ones — but often from abroad, through an agent, and against tenants who know their defences. This guide sets out the procedure as it stood in September 2026: how a congé pour vendre gives your tenant first refusal, what a congé pour reprise must prove, which elderly or vulnerable tenants you cannot dislodge without offering rehousing, and how the courts punish fake notices.
I. Serving a Congé That Survives Challenge: Selling with First Refusal or Repossessing for a Named Person
A. How to Sell a Let Flat Without Losing the Sale: Price, First Refusal and the Second Offer That Annuls Everything
Timing comes first. Article 10 of the Act of 6 July 1989 provides: “Le contrat de location est conclu pour une durée au moins égale à trois ans pour les bailleurs personnes physiques” — an unfurnished lease from an individual landlord runs at least three years — and adds: “Si le bailleur ne donne pas congé dans les conditions de forme et de délai prévues à l’article 15, le contrat de location parvenu à son terme est soit reconduit tacitement, soit renouvelé.” Miss the deadline or the formalities and the tenant stays for another three years. For furnished lettings the cycle is shorter: Article 25-7 states: “Il est conclu pour une durée d’au moins un an”, reduced to nine months for a student letting. Your congé must therefore be served by commissaire de justice (enforcement officer) or by recorded delivery with proof of receipt, six months before the end of an unfurnished lease — three months for a furnished one, as explained below — and only takes effect at expiry of the current term.
Any landlord’s notice must state its reason, and the statute allows only three. Article 15, paragraph I requires that “ce congé doit être justifié soit par sa décision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement, soit par un motif légitime et sérieux” — repossession, sale, or a serious and legitimate ground such as the tenant’s persistent breach. And: “Le délai de préavis applicable au congé est de six mois lorsqu’il émane du bailleur.” Where you choose sale, paragraph II turns the notice into a purchase offer: “Le congé vaut offre de vente au profit du locataire : l’offre est valable pendant les deux premiers mois du délai de préavis.” The notice must therefore state, on pain of invalidity, the price and conditions of the planned sale. If the tenant accepts within two months, the lease is extended until completion — two months to sign the deed, four if the tenant needs a mortgage — and if completion never happens the acceptance is void and the tenant loses all right to remain. If the tenant declines or stays silent, the tenant must leave at the end of the six months, now as an occupier without title.
The trap most British sellers fall into comes after the tenant refuses. Months later you agree a lower price with a third-party buyer, the notaire (the French conveyancing notary who authenticates the sale) draws up the deed — and the tenant has the whole sale annulled. The statute is explicit — Article 15, paragraph II: where the owner sells on terms more favourable to the buyer, “le notaire doit, lorsque le bailleur n’y a pas préalablement procédé, notifier au locataire ces conditions et prix à peine de nullité de la vente”. The Bordeaux Court of Appeal applied this without mercy on 2 July 2026 (RG No 23/01356): recalling that “Il est constant que le droit de préemption s’applique à la fin du bail au profit du locataire dont le logement est mis en vente, peu important le nombre de logements vendus et l’existence d’une vente en bloc ou par lots”, it annulled a September 2020 sale concluded on better terms without a fresh notification and ordered the seller to pay the former tenant 14,313 euros in damages for the financial loss (CA Bordeaux, 2 July 2026, RG 23/01356). Practical consequence: every price drop, every concession on fixtures or fees, must go back to the former tenant first through your notaire before you sign with anyone else. Serve the notice so that receipt is provable. A congé sent by ordinary post is worthless if the tenant denies receiving it; use a commissaire de justice for personal service or a recorded letter with proof of delivery, and keep the acknowledgement. Count the six months from receipt, not from posting, and attach the statutory information notice on the landlord’s duties and the tenant’s remedies — adjudicators treat a missing notice as evidence of amateurism that colours the rest of the file. Where several co-tenants or spouses share the lease, serve each holder separately: notifying only one of two joint tenants leaves the other in place. And where you bought the flat already tenanted, extra delays apply: no congé pour vendre before the first tacit renewal if the lease ends within three years of your purchase, and no effective congé pour reprise before two full years of ownership — anti-speculation locks that catch British buyers of occupied Paris studios unawares.
B. How to Take the Flat Back for Yourself or Your Family: Named Beneficiaries and the Real-and-Serious Test
A congé pour reprise — repossessing to live in the flat yourself or house a close relative — faces the heaviest judicial scrutiny of all three grounds. Under Article 15, paragraph I, the notice must, on pain of invalidity, state the reason and, for repossession, the beneficiary’s full name and address plus the exact family link: “A peine de nullité, le congé donné par le bailleur doit indiquer le motif allégué et, en cas de reprise, les nom et adresse du bénéficiaire de la reprise ainsi que la nature du lien existant entre le bailleur et le bénéficiaire de la reprise”. And the circle of permitted beneficiaries is closed: yourself, your spouse, your civil partner (partenaire de PACS) at the date of notice, your established cohabiting partner of at least one year, your parents or children, or those of your spouse, partner or cohabitant. A congé to house a friend, a business associate or a future unidentified buyer is void on its face. The statute then adds the substantive test: “Lorsqu’il donne congé à son locataire pour reprendre le logement, le bailleur justifie du caractère réel et sérieux de sa décision de reprise” — you must prove the need is genuine and serious, not a pretext for re-letting at a higher rent.
The Paris Court of Appeal showed on 24 June 2025 (RG No 23/03170) how strictly judges apply that test. A landlord had served notice to rehouse his son, describing the young man as provisionally accommodated by his parents without means to rent. The first judge annulled the notice, and the appeal court agreed: “Le jugement entrepris prononce la nullité de ce congé faute de preuve du caractère réel et sérieux du motif ainsi allégué”. The family record book proving father and son was not enough without evidence of the son’s claimed student situation, job search and alleged homelessness; the court noted drily that it is common for a student to live with his parents during his studies, which does not prove an urgent need to move, and that the supposed Paris internship predated the notice while the later Paris job postdated it — neither supporting the stated reason. The tenants, in place for thirty-six years and sheltering an 84-year-old mother-in-law, stayed (CA Paris, 24 June 2025, RG 23/03170). For a British landlord the lesson is documentary: assemble before serving — proof of your move (sale of your UK home, French employment contract, school enrolments, shipping booking), proof of the beneficiary’s housing need (notice to quit from their own landlord, overcrowding, medical certificate), and evidence the repossessed flat actually suits that need. Judges verify the motive of their own motion and declare the notice invalid where renewal appears unjustified by serious and legitimate evidence.
Two British-specific pitfalls deserve emphasis. First, repossessing through a property company: where your French flat sits in a société civile immobilière (SCI, the family property company many British buyers use), a congé pour reprise for personal occupation is far harder to sustain, because the company — not you — is the landlord, and the closed circle of beneficiaries does not map onto shareholders. Structure the holding before the lease ends, with proper advice, rather than serving a notice the tenant’s lawyer will shred. Second, furnished lettings follow the same logic on a shorter fuse: Article 25-8 requires that “Le bailleur qui ne souhaite pas renouveler le contrat doit informer le locataire avec un préavis de trois mois et motiver son refus de renouvellement du bail soit par sa décision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement, soit par un motif légitime et sérieux”, adding that “Lorsqu’il donne congé à son locataire pour reprendre le logement, le bailleur justifie du caractère réel et sérieux de sa décision de reprise.” Same three reasons, same nullity for a missing motive, same beneficiary list — but three months instead of six, and no tacit renewal beyond one year at a time (nine-month student leases do not renew tacitly at all, which is why student lets are the simplest to recover).
II. When the Tenant Stays Anyway: Protected Occupants and How the Judge Decides
A. Which Tenants You Cannot Dislodge Without Offering Another Home: Over-65s, Low Incomes and Disability
Even a perfectly drafted, timely congé fails against protected tenants unless you offer them substitute housing. Article 15, paragraph III bars non-renewal against “tout locataire âgé de plus de soixante-cinq ans et dont les ressources annuelles sont inférieures à un plafond de ressources en vigueur pour l’attribution des logements locatifs conventionnés” — any tenant over sixty-five whose yearly income sits below the regulated social-housing ceiling — “sans qu’un logement correspondant à ses besoins et à ses possibilités lui soit offert”, without offering a home matching the tenant’s needs and means within the statutory rehousing area. The protection extends where the tenant supports a live-in dependent over sixty-five and the household’s combined income stays under the ceiling. A parallel shield in paragraph IV covers tenants receiving the disabled adult’s allowance (allocation aux adultes handicapés) under modest resources, again conditional on a rehousing offer. Ages are assessed at lease expiry, incomes at the date of notice — so check birth dates and tax notices before serving, because a tenant who turns sixty-five between notice and expiry may enter protection mid-procedure.
The rehousing offer is not a formality. It must match the tenant’s needs (size, accessibility, state of health) and means (rent the tenant can actually pay), within the geographic limits set by the 1948 Act — broadly the same commune or neighbouring communes, or the same Paris arrondissement group. An offer of a smaller flat at a higher rent forty kilometres away will be rejected by the judge, and your congé with it. Start the search early through local estate agents and social-housing bodies, keep written evidence of every genuine proposal, and serve the offer with the notice or immediately after. There is one symmetrical exception worth knowing: the protection does not apply where the landlord is personally over sixty-five or personally under the same income ceiling — the small retired owner recovering a studio to live on is not sacrificed to a wealthier tenant. For British owners this exception often decides strategy: a retired couple in Kent living on pensions may qualify, while a higher-rate taxpayer with a Paris portfolio will not.
Furnished tenancies carry the same protections on the same three-month timetable, and student nine-month leases deserve a warning in the other direction: because tacit renewal does not apply to them, some landlords assume no notice is needed at all. Wrong — the three-month reasoned notice under Article 25-8 still applies at the nine-month term, and an un-notified student lease simply continues. Diarise every furnished expiry at least four months out, verify the tenant’s age and income position, and only then choose between renewal, reasoned non-renewal, or a rent-terms renegotiation notified on the same three-month cycle.
B. How a Tenant Fights Your Notice and What a Fake Motive Costs: the Judge’s Own-Motion Review and Criminal Fines
A tenant who considers the congé defective or pretextual does not need to leave and sue later; the tenant stays, and you must go to court. Disputes go before the juge des contentieux de la protection (the JCP, the dedicated protection-litigation judge within the local tribunal judiciaire). Article L. 213-4-4 of the Code of Judicial Organisation gives this judge the case: “Le juge des contentieux de la protection connaît des actions dont un contrat de louage d’immeubles à usage d’habitation ou un contrat portant sur l’occupation d’un logement est l’objet, la cause ou l’occasion”. Crucially, Article 15 itself empowers the judge to investigate unprompted: “En cas de contestation, le juge peut, même d’office, vérifier la réalité du motif du congé et le respect des obligations prévues au présent article. Il peut notamment déclarer non valide le congé si la non-reconduction du bail n’apparaît pas justifiée par des éléments sérieux et légitimes.” Even if the tenant’s lawyer misses a defect, the judge can raise it. Bring the complete file: proof of service and dates, the stated motive with its supporting documents, the information notice (notice d’information on rights and remedies that must accompany a reprise or vente notice), and, for sales, the full chain of offers and notifications.
Where the motive is invented — the classic being a congé pour reprise followed by quiet re-letting at a higher rent, or a congé pour vendre with no genuine intent to sell — the sanctions stack. Civilly, the notice is declared invalid and the lease continues, with damages for the tenant’s trouble. Criminally, Article 15, paragraph V provides: “Le fait pour un bailleur de délivrer un congé justifié frauduleusement par sa décision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement est puni d’une amende pénale dont le montant ne peut être supérieur à 6 000 € pour une personne physique et à 30 000 € pour une personne morale.” The fine scales with gravity, and the tenant may join the criminal case as a civil party to claim compensation. Re-letting within months of a supposed family repossession, listing the flat for sale at a fantasy price no buyer would pay, or serving simultaneous congés with inconsistent motives are the fact patterns that trigger prosecution. If you genuinely change your mind after a valid notice — the planned move falls through, the sale is abandoned — document the change immediately and offer the tenant renewal before re-letting to anyone else; courts distinguish honest reversals evidenced in writing from pretexts exposed by a new tenancy agreement.
Where the congé is valid and the tenant still refuses to leave at term, the tenant becomes an occupant without right or title (occupant sans droit ni titre), and the eviction machinery described for other cases takes over: court order recording the end of title, order to vacate served by commissaire de justice, the two-month cover period, possible hardship extensions and the 1 November to 31 March winter truce. The tenant meanwhile owes an occupation payment (indemnité d’occupation) until handover. For a British owner managing from the United Kingdom, the practical thread through all of this is anticipation: calendar the lease term eighteen months out, verify age, income and benefit status of the occupants, choose the genuinely available ground, brief the commissaire de justice with the full documentary pack, and line up the rehousing offer where protection may bite. A congé served six months early with complete proof ends tenancies; a rushed or fictional one funds the tenant’s lawyer and keeps the tenant in your flat.
Conclusion
Recovering your French flat to sell it or live in it is entirely possible, but only through the congé the statute designs. Serve six months before term — three for furnished — stating sale with price and conditions, repossession for a named close relative with address and link, or a documented serious ground, and attach the information notice. Honour the tenant’s two-month first refusal on a sale, and re-notify through the notaire before signing at any better price, or the sale itself falls as the Bordeaux seller learned at a cost of 14,313 euros. Prove the repossession genuine with contemporaneous documents, as the Paris landlord’s bare family record book failed to do. Screen for over-65, low-income and disabled occupants and prepare a real rehousing offer, keep every proof of service and every offer letter in one file, and never invent a motive: invalidity plus up to 6,000 euros in criminal fines is the price of fiction. Done properly and on time, the lease ends at term and the flat comes home; done hastily from abroad, the tenant stays for years at your expense.
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