You have swapped Manchester, Bristol or South London for Paris, Lyon or the Dordogne, and you rent your French home from a private landlord. The first surprise for British tenants is pleasant: French tenancy law protects the person who lives in the flat far more than the law of England and Wales protects an assured shorthold tenant. The second surprise is less pleasant: everything runs in French, through French forms, French inventories and French judges, and a single missed deadline can undo the strongest case. This guide explains, in English, how a British tenant in France recovers a deposit, forces a landlord to repair an indecent flat, answers a notice to vacate and stops an eviction, with the exact legal texts and the latest court decisions.

French vocabulary first, because every letter you receive will use it. The bail is the lease. The bailleur is the landlord. You are the locataire, the tenant. The dépôt de garantie is the tenancy deposit. The état des lieux is the inventory of condition drawn up when you move in and when you leave. The congé is the formal notice by which the landlord asks you to leave at the end of the lease. The juge des contentieux de la protection, known as the JCP, is the specialist judge who hears nearly all disputes between landlords and tenants. The commission départementale de conciliation is the county-level conciliation board that tries to settle these disputes before court. Keep these six words in mind; the rest of this article uses them constantly.

One boundary before we start. This article covers your life as a tenant: deposits, repairs, notices to vacate and eviction. The purchase of a French property follows different rules and belongs to our conveyancing work, just as setting up a company in France belongs to our business desk. Here, you own the person, not the bricks: residence, daily legal life and the roof over your head.

I. How to recover your deposit and force your landlord to carry out repairs

A. How to recover your dépôt de garantie after you hand back the keys

British tenants usually arrive with English reflexes. In England, as the official guidance states: “Your landlord must put your deposit in a government-approved tenancy deposit scheme (TDP) if you rent your home on an assured periodic tenancy (APT).” France has no deposit-protection scheme at all. Your money stays in the landlord’s hands, and the statute controls instead what the landlord may take, what the landlord may deduct and how fast the landlord must pay you back. The controlling text is Law No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, the statute that governs nearly all residential lettings in France, and its Article 22 is the provision you will quote in every letter.

Article 22 caps the deposit from day one. “Lorsqu’un dépôt de garantie est prévu par le contrat de location pour garantir l’exécution de ses obligations locatives par le locataire, il ne peut être supérieur à un mois de loyer en principal.” One month of rent, excluding charges, for an unfurnished letting. For a furnished letting (location meublée), which is how many British newcomers start, the cap is higher: “Par dérogation à l’article 22, le montant du dépôt de garantie exigible par le bailleur est limité à deux mois de loyer en principal.” Anything above these ceilings is unlawful, and a landlord who demanded three months on signing has no legal basis to keep the excess. Note also that “Un dépôt de garantie ne peut être prévu lorsque le loyer est payable d’avance pour une période supérieure à deux mois”: where rent is payable quarterly in advance, no deposit may be required at all, unless you later ask to switch to monthly payment.

At the end of the tenancy, the deposit must come back within strict deadlines. “Il est restitué dans un délai maximal de deux mois à compter de la remise en main propre, ou par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception, des clés au bailleur ou à son mandataire, déduction faite, le cas échéant, des sommes restant dues au bailleur et des sommes dont celui-ci pourrait être tenu, aux lieu et place du locataire, sous réserve qu’elles soient dûment justifiées.” Two months is the ordinary limit. It falls to one month where the exit inventory matches the entry inventory: “Il est restitué dans un délai maximal d’un mois à compter de la remise des clés par le locataire lorsque l’état des lieux de sortie est conforme à l’état des lieux d’entrée, déduction faite, le cas échéant, des sommes restant dues au bailleur et des sommes dont celui-ci pourrait être tenu, en lieu et place du locataire, sous réserve qu’elles soient dûment justifiées.” Every deduction must therefore be both owed and properly documented. A lump sum described as “cleaning and repairs” with no invoice proves nothing.

Late payment is punished automatically. “A défaut de restitution dans les délais prévus, le dépôt de garantie restant dû au locataire est majoré d’une somme égale à 10 % du loyer mensuel en principal, pour chaque période mensuelle commencée en retard.” Ten per cent of one month’s rent for every month of delay, with no need to prove separate loss. The only escape for the landlord is where you failed to give your new address: “Cette majoration n’est pas due lorsque l’origine du défaut de restitution dans les délais résulte de l’absence de transmission par le locataire de l’adresse de son nouveau domicile.” Always send your forwarding address by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception) when you return the keys. And if the flat is sold while you live there, the buyer inherits the problem, not you: “la restitution du dépôt de garantie incombe au nouveau bailleur.”

The comparison of the two inventories decides almost every deposit dispute, and a recent Paris decision shows exactly how judges reason. On 14 April 2026 the Paris Court of Appeal (Pôle 4, Chamber 4, general docket No. 24/05816) dealt with tenants of a furnished flat who had paid a deposit of 4,000 euros. After a contradictory exit inventory signed on 31 May 2022, the landlords kept 3,396 euros for refurbishment and returned 604 euros. The tenants sued for the balance, the 10 per cent monthly uplift and damages. The court confirmed the first-instance judgment in full and ordered the tenants to pay 1,500 euros under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Read the full decision here: Paris Court of Appeal, 14 April 2026, RG 24/05816. Two passages matter for every British tenant. First, “la comparaison entre les états des lieux d’entrée et de sortie constitue le mode de preuve privilégié pour établir l’existence de dégradations imputables au locataire”: the comparison between the entry and exit inventories is the preferred evidence of damage attributable to the tenant. Photographs help, but they do not replace that comparison. Second, “des retenues sont légitimes dès lors qu’elles correspondent à des dégradations excédant l’usure normale et qu’elles sont justifiées par des devis ou factures, sans qu’il soit exigé que les travaux aient effectivement été réalisés avant la restitution”: deductions are lawful where they reflect damage beyond ordinary wear and tear (usure normale) and are supported by quotes or invoices, even if the works had not actually been carried out before the refund. The lesson cuts both ways. A landlord with a careful entry inventory and itemised invoices will win. A landlord with vague claims and no paperwork will lose, and will pay the 10 per cent uplift on top.

Practical method, then, from the day you move in. Insist on a detailed entry inventory, room by room, with photographs attached and countersigned. Report defects in writing during the first weeks. When you leave, attend the exit inventory in person, write your reservations on the document itself and keep a copy. Return the keys against a receipt or by registered letter, and in the same letter give your new address and ask for restitution within one month, noting the 10 per cent monthly uplift. If the landlord deducts, demand the comparative inventories plus the invoices or quotes for every euro retained. If the reply is silence or a refusal, send a formal demand (mise en demeure) by registered letter, then seize the commission départementale de conciliation, which hears deposit disputes without charge and often unlocks payment. Failing settlement, the JCP orders restitution plus the uplift. Act within the limitation period: “Toutes actions dérivant d’un contrat de bail sont prescrites par trois ans à compter du jour où le titulaire d’un droit a connu ou aurait dû connaître les faits lui permettant d’exercer ce droit.” Three years from the day you knew, or should have known, the facts. Do not let an agency string you along past that point.

B. How to force the landlord to provide decent housing and pay for the harm

Damp patches spreading across the bedroom wall, a boiler that fails every winter, windows that no longer close, cockroaches in the kitchen: British tenants are often told that renting an older French flat means accepting its defects. The statute says the opposite. The Civil Code provides that “le bailleur est obligé, par la nature du contrat, et sans qu’il soit besoin d’aucune stipulation particulière de délivrer au preneur, s’il s’agit de son habitation principale, un logement décent”: by the very nature of the contract, and with no need for any special clause, the landlord must deliver decent housing where the flat is your main home. Article 6 of the 1989 statute spells out the content: “le bailleur est tenu de remettre au locataire un logement décent ne laissant pas apparaître de risques manifestes pouvant porter atteinte à la sécurité physique ou à la santé, exempt de toute infestation d’espèces nuisibles et parasites, répondant à un niveau de performance minimal au sens de l’article L. 173-1-1 du code de la construction et de l’habitation et doté des éléments le rendant conforme à l’usage d’habitation”. No manifest risks to health or safety, no pest infestation, a minimum energy performance, and the fittings that make the place fit to live in. A government decree then lists the precise characteristics of decent housing, so arguments about “charm of the old” carry no legal weight.

Where the flat falls short, Article 20-1 gives you a direct action: “Si le logement loué ne satisfait pas aux dispositions des premier et deuxième alinéas de l’article 6, le locataire peut demander au propriétaire sa mise en conformité sans qu’il soit porté atteinte à la validité du contrat en cours.” You sue for compliance while the lease continues; you do not have to leave to be heard. The judge sets the works and their deadline, and the statute arms the judge with real leverage, as the Court of Cassation recalled: “Il peut réduire le montant du loyer ou suspendre, avec ou sans consignation, son paiement et la durée du bail jusqu’à l’exécution de ces travaux.” The court may reduce the rent or suspend its payment, with or without payment into court, until the works are done. Never stop paying rent on your own initiative, however: only the judge may suspend it, and unilateral withholding exposes you to termination for breach.

Two decisions of the Court of Cassation dated 4 June 2026, both published in the official Bulletin, have considerably strengthened tenants. In the first (No. 24-11.437), the Third Civil Chamber held that “L’obligation de délivrance d’un logement décent, continue, est exigible pendant toute la durée du bail.” The duty to deliver decent housing is continuous and enforceable for as long as the lease runs. The tenant may therefore, in the court’s words, “à poursuivre l’exécution forcée en nature de l’obligation de délivrance d’un logement décent tant que le manquement perdure, d’autre part à obtenir la réparation des conséquences dommageables de l’inexécution par le bailleur de son obligation de délivrance d’un logement décent sur une période de trois ans précédant sa demande en justice”: seek forced performance in kind while the breach lasts, and obtain compensation for the harmful consequences of the breach over the three years before going to court. Read it here: Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 4 June 2026, No. 24-11.437. In the second (No. 24-16.993), the court protected the tenant of a studio whose main room measured only 8.84 square metres and had been judicially declared indecent back in 2019. The landlord served notice to vacate so that works could be carried out. The Court of Cassation quashed that approach: “Ne peut constituer un motif légitime et sérieux de congé la réalisation de travaux par le bailleur destinés à remédier à l’indécence du logement dont il avait connaissance lors de la conclusion du bail”. Works to fix indecency the landlord already knew about when signing the lease can never justify terminating it. Read it here: Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 4 June 2026, No. 24-16.993.

Energy performance deserves its own warning, because it now decides whether your flat may even be let. The energy performance certificate (diagnostic de performance énergétique, or DPE) rates housing from A to G. Since 1 January 2025, the worst-rated homes are simply off the rental market. As the Ministry for the Environment states: “À compter du 1er janvier 2025, conformément à la loi Climat & Résilience, les logements passoires thermiques classés G au DPE seront interdits à la location.” The ban applies to new leases and, on renewal or tacit extension, to current ones. If your landlord lets you a G-rated flat today, or pressures you to leave so the flat can be “renovated” while nothing is done, that context matters twice: the dwelling likely fails the minimum energy criterion of decent housing, and any notice built on the landlord’s own breach is fragile, as the 4 June 2026 rulings show. The statute now writes the energy scale directly into decent housing: “1° A compter du 1er janvier 2025, entre la classe A et la classe F”, and “Les logements qui ne répondent pas aux critères précités aux échéances fixées sont considérés comme non décents.” Ask for the DPE before signing anything; the landlord must have it drawn up and shown to candidates.

Method again, step by step. From the first signs of damp, cold, infestation or danger, notify the landlord or agency by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, describing each defect, asking for dated remedial works and keeping copies of everything, including medical certificates if your health suffers and photographs with dates. Have the defects recorded by a commissaire de justice (the court officer formerly called huissier de justice), whose report carries strong evidential weight. Request the tenant-protection association or the commission départementale de conciliation to intervene. If nothing moves, petition the JCP for compliance works, a rent reduction and damages for the months of substandard living, relying on the three-year window the Court of Cassation confirmed. Keep paying the rent meanwhile, unless the judge suspends it. Tenants who withhold rent unilaterally regularly lose the sympathy of the court and hand the landlord the breach motive discussed below.

II. How to answer a notice to vacate and stop an eviction in France

A. How to challenge a congé ordering you to leave for a sale, repossession or alleged breach

The congé is the letter every tenant dreads, and British tenants often misread it. It is not an eviction order, and it is not the end of the story. It is a notice, served before the lease ends, by which the landlord asks you to leave, and the statute polices both its reasons and its form. Article 15 of the 1989 statute sets the closed list of permitted motives: “Lorsque le bailleur donne congé à son locataire, ce congé doit être justifié soit par sa décision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement, soit par un motif légitime et sérieux, notamment l’inexécution par le locataire de l’une des obligations lui incombant.” Three doors only: repossession (reprise) so the landlord or close family can live there, sale (vente), or a genuine and serious ground such as breach by the tenant. And the notice period protects you: “Le délai de préavis applicable au congé est de six mois lorsqu’il émane du bailleur.” Six months from a landlord, against one to three months when you give notice yourself. A congé received five months before the end of the lease is simply ineffective, whatever its motive.

Each motive carries its own formal conditions, and landlords get them wrong surprisingly often. For repossession, the statute demands proof of a genuine plan: “Lorsqu’il donne congé à son locataire pour reprendre le logement, le bailleur justifie du caractère réel et sérieux de sa décision de reprise.” The notice must name who will live there and on what basis, and the intention is assessed on the day the notice is served. The Court of Cassation confirmed on 3 July 2025 (No. 24-11.504) that judges examine the reality of that intention concretely: a landlord who, approaching retirement with falling income, genuinely planned to occupy one of the flats owned was held to have shown, in the court’s words, “le caractère réel et sérieux de l’intention du bailleur, au jour de la délivrance du congé, de reprendre le logement pour l’habiter à titre de résidence principale”. Read it here: Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 3 July 2025, No. 24-11.504. Conversely, a landlord who never moves in, re-lets at a higher rent or cannot explain who was supposed to live there faces annulment of the notice and damages. If you suspect a sham, collect evidence early: advertisements for the flat, new occupants, electoral roll entries, statements from neighbours.

For sale, the notice must contain the deal itself: “Lorsqu’il est fondé sur la décision de vendre le logement, le congé doit, à peine de nullité, indiquer le prix et les conditions de la vente projetée.” Price and conditions of the planned sale, on pain of nullity. The reason for that strictness is your right of first refusal (droit de préemption): the notice operates as an offer, and you may buy on the stated terms instead of leaving, within the statutory acceptance period. A congé pour vendre without a price, with a fanciful price that changes a month later, or served after the landlord has already promised the flat to someone else, is vulnerable. For alleged breach (motif légitime et sérieux), typically unpaid rent or antisocial behaviour, the landlord must prove facts serious enough to justify ending the lease; isolated late payment once regularised rarely suffices, and judges regularly grant payment schedules instead of termination.

Above all, contesting a congé is your right, and exercising it cannot be held against you. In that same 3 July 2025 ruling, the Court of Cassation quashed an appeal decision that had ordered the tenant to pay 3,000 euros for so-called abusive resistance merely because she had fought the notice. The court recalled the Civil Code baseline, “tout fait quelconque de l’homme, qui cause à autrui un dommage, oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrivé à le réparer”, then held: “En statuant ainsi, sans caractériser un comportement fautif de la locataire de nature à faire dégénérer en abus l’exercice de son droit de contester la validité du congé délivré par le bailleur, la cour d’appel a violé le texte susvisé.” Without a proven fault turning the challenge into abuse, punishing the tenant for defending herself violates the law. Do not let a landlord’s solicitor frighten you out of court with threats of damages for “wasting everyone’s time”. Check the notice instead: proper service by registered letter or court officer, exact expiry date, six months, stated and genuine motive, price and conditions for a sale, identity of the future occupant for a repossession. Then answer in writing, concisely, point by point, and bring the dispute to the JCP if the landlord will not withdraw. The burden of justifying the congé lies on the landlord, never on you.

B. How to stop an eviction: the two-month rule, the winter truce and extra time from the judge

Even with a valid congé or a court order, nobody may put you on the street overnight. French law surrounds eviction (expulsion) with successive shields, and each one buys time or ends the procedure. The first shield is the two-month rule. Once a court officer serves the order to leave (commandement de quitter les lieux), the clock starts: “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”. Two clear months before any physical eviction from an inhabited home, with Articles L.412-3 to L.412-7, expressly saved by the text, allowing the judge to grant you further delays to leave. Use those two months actively: regularise arrears where possible, apply for social assistance, document rehousing efforts and instruct counsel. Judges reward tenants who show concrete steps; they penalise passivity.

The second shield is the winter truce (trêve hivernale), which surprises many British tenants by its sheer force. “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”: every non-executed eviction measure is suspended from 1 November to 31 March. A final court order, even one that has become definitive, cannot be enforced in that window, except in narrow statutory cases such as rehousing secured or squats of another person’s home. The truce does not erase the debt or the order; it suspends enforcement. Landlords know this calendar perfectly, which is why pressure often intensifies in September and October. If your two-month period or your court-ordered delay runs into November, winter protects you until spring, and spring gives the judge a full picture of your good faith.

The third shield is the judge’s power to stagger and suspend. Before any eviction for arrears, the procedure passes through demands, a summons and a hearing, and at the hearing the JCP may grant payment schedules over up to several years, suspend the termination clause while you pay, and add time to quit the premises. Bring your accounts, proof of income and benefits, evidence of partial payments, medical or family circumstances and any rehousing applications. Where the arrears come from a sudden event, illness, loss of a contract, separation, explain it with documents. Where the flat itself is defective, link the two disputes: a landlord claiming thousands in arrears while ignoring a judicially recognised damp problem impresses no court. And remember the boundary that protects you absolutely: only a commissaire de justice acting on a court order, with the authorisation required for forced entry, may remove you. A landlord who changes the locks, removes the door, cuts power or water, or dumps your belongings on the pavement commits an unlawful private eviction (voie de fait), which the judge sanctions firmly and swiftly. Call the police, have the facts recorded and seize the judge at once.

A Paris and Île-de-France note, since so many British tenants live there. Deposit, decency and eviction disputes in the capital go to the JCP division of the Paris judicial court (tribunal judiciaire de Paris), whose caseload means early action matters: file before the situation hardens. The Paris county conciliation commission handles thousands of deposit and works disputes yearly and is worth trying before suing. Rents and agency practices in Paris are closely policed, inventories are scrutinised line by line, and winter-truce enforcement involves the prefecture (préfecture de police) for the capital. Keep every Parisian proof in French administrative form: registered letters, receipts (quittances de loyer), the lease, both inventories and the DPE. A tidy file in the French format wins cases in Paris faster than any eloquent English explanation.

Conclusion

Renting in France as a British tenant after Brexit means playing a game whose rules, for once, favour the occupier: a capped and strictly refundable deposit with an automatic 10 per cent monthly uplift for delay; a continuous, judicially enforceable right to decent housing with damages over three years; notices to vacate confined to three justified motives with six months’ warning; and evictions gated by a two-month floor, a winter truce and the judge’s power to grant time. The latest rulings confirm the direction: deductions need comparative inventories and invoices, indecency known at signing can never justify a congé, and contesting a notice is a right, not an abuse. Your part of the bargain is method: detailed inventories, registered letters, a forwarding address, rent paid until the judge says otherwise, and early challenges to defective notices. Do that, and the French system will do the rest.

Need a quick opinion on your case

If your deposit is blocked, your flat is unfit to live in, or you have received a congé or an eviction order, speak to a lawyer before the next deadline passes. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, telephone consultation: 80 EUR TTC. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. We receive clients in Paris and across Île-de-France, as well as British tenants elsewhere in France.