Your tenant in Paris has stopped paying rent. Two months pass, then three, and the arrears keep growing while the apartment remains occupied. As a foreign landlord, your first instinct may be to change the locks, cut off utilities or send a harsh email terminating the lease on the spot. In France, every one of those shortcuts is unlawful, and each of them can backfire: an owner who takes justice into his own hands may end up paying damages to the very tenant who owes him money. Tenant eviction in France follows a compulsory, step-by-step procedure, and the courts enforce each step strictly. A single defective document can send you back to the starting point after months of waiting.
This guide explains, for non-resident and expatriate landlords, the full eviction route for unpaid rent under French residential tenancy law: the amicable phase, the commandement de payer (formal order to pay served by a judicial officer), the court hearing, the payment schedules the judge may impose, and the enforcement phase with its famous winter truce. It reflects the law as in force in September 2026, the official service-public procedure, and the published case law of the Cour de cassation (France’s supreme civil court). It flags the traps that specifically catch foreign owners: distance, language, guarantees and insurance deadlines. It is practical information, not a promise of outcome: every eviction depends on its documents, its figures and its judge.
I. The Compulsory Pre-Court Phase: Demand Payment Properly Before Any Judge Will Listen
French eviction procedure is built on a simple idea: the court will only terminate a lease if the landlord proves that he first gave the tenant a formal, regular opportunity to pay. The pre-court phase is therefore not a courtesy; it is a condition of admissibility. For a foreign landlord managing from abroad, this phase is also where most cases are won or lost, because the documents must be exact, in French, served by the right officer and within the right time limits.
A. From the First Reminder to the Commandement de Payer Based on the Termination Clause
When the first rent goes unpaid, the official procedure recommended by the French administration starts softly: remind the tenant of his obligation by a simple letter, then send a formal demand by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. You can also call on a conciliateur de justice (justice conciliator, a free process) or a civil mediator (a paid process) to seek an agreement such as a payment spread. Note one trap that catches small arrears: this conciliation attempt is compulsory before you can ask the judge to terminate the lease when the debt is 5,000 euros or less. Skipping it means inadmissibility, however well-founded your claim.
From the first unpaid rent, you should also activate your safety nets in parallel: call on the caution (guarantor) you selected when signing the lease, and declare the loss to your assurance loyers impayés (unpaid-rent insurance) if you hold one. Guarantees and insurance policies carry their own notification deadlines, and a landlord living abroad who discovers the procedure six months late may find that the guarantor or the insurer is partly discharged. Do not wait for the court phase to read those contracts.
The decisive act is the commandement de payer: a formal order to pay served by a commissaire de justice (judicial officer, formerly huissier de justice) that expressly invokes the clause résolutoire (termination clause) of the lease. Almost all French residential leases contain such a clause, providing that the lease will terminate automatically if the rent, charges or deposit remain unpaid after a formal demand has gone unheeded. Under the current official procedure, the order must state the time allowed to pay the debt, currently six weeks, the monthly amount of rent and charges, a count of the debt, a warning that failure to pay or to request payment delays will allow the landlord to ask the judge to terminate the lease and evict the tenant, and the address of the solidarity bodies the tenant can contact.
The content of that document is policed by both statute and case law. Article 1225 of the Civil Code provides: “La clause résolutoire précise les engagements dont l’inexécution entraînera la résolution du contrat.” In plain English: the termination clause must specify exactly which breaches trigger termination, and the formal demand only takes effect if it expressly mentions the clause. A generic demand letter, even sent by registered post, does not start the clock. Only a regular commandement de payer served by a judicial officer and reproducing the clause does.
Two practical warnings follow. First, keep the bill clean: the Cour de cassation has held that “Qu’en statuant ainsi, alors que les dispositions de l’article 4, paragraphe p de la loi du 6 juillet 1989, introduites par la loi du 13 juillet 2006 portant engagement national pour le logement, selon lesquelles est réputée non écrite toute clause d’un bail d’habitation qui fait supporter au locataire, notamment, des frais de relance, s’appliquent immédiatement aux baux en cours et que les frais de relance exposés postérieurement à l’entrée en vigueur de cette loi ne peuvent être mis à la charge du locataire, la cour d’appel, qui n’a pas recherché à quelle date les frais de relance litigieux avaient été engagés, n’a pas donné de base légale à sa décision de ce chef ;” In other words, any lease clause loading reminder or recovery fees onto a residential tenant is deemed unwritten and cannot be charged, under Article 4(p) of the Act of 6 July 1989 as amended in 2006, which applies immediately even to ongoing leases. Inflate the debt with unlawful fees and you hand the tenant a defence on the amount due. Second, calendar the expiry precisely: once the six-week period lapses without full payment, the clause takes effect and you may petition the court to record the termination. But “takes effect” does not mean “game over for the tenant”, as the next sections show.
B. The Mandatory Notifications and the Summons Before the Protection Judge
After an unsuccessful commandement de payer, the landlord summons the tenant before the juge des contentieux de la protection (protection litigation judge) to have the acquisition of the termination clause recorded, obtain an order to pay the arrears and secure an eviction order. The hearing must take place at least six weeks after the tenant received the summons, which leaves both sides time to prepare. But before that summons is even served, the landlord must complete the notifications the statute requires toward the public bodies involved in housing aid. This is where foreign landlords most often stumble, because nothing equivalent exists in most common-law systems.
Where the tenant receives housing benefit (aide personnalisée au logement, family housing allowance or social housing allowance), the landlord’s assignation must have been notified beforehand to the competent commission, and the courts apply this strictly. In a leading social-housing case, the Cour de cassation quashed an appeal decision and held that “Qu’en statuant ainsi, alors que 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, la cour d’appel a violé le texte susvisé ;” In English: every summons seeking termination must be notified to the commission in advance, even if the commission was already seized during earlier proceedings. A notification made for a previous, abandoned summons does not carry over. Each new assignation needs its own prior notification, failing which the claim is inadmissible.
The lesson for a foreign owner is organisational: before instructing the judicial officer, check whether the tenant receives housing aid, identify the competent body, and have the notification served in time. Your property manager or lawyer should treat this as a checklist item, not an afterthought, because an inadmissibility ruling wipes out months of procedure and the arrears keep running in the meantime.
At the same time, prepare for the tenant’s defences, because the summons phase is also the tenant’s forum. The tenant may challenge the validity of the commandement de payer itself, and that challenge does not deprive him of the right to ask for more time. The Cour de cassation has confirmed that “Attendu que 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 ; que le juge, saisi par le locataire avant l’expiration de ce délai de deux mois, peut accorder des délais de paiement dans les conditions prévues aux articles 1244-1 premier alinéa et 1244-2 du Code civil ;” In other words, the termination takes effect only two months after an unsuccessful payment order, and the judge seized by the tenant before that deadline may grant payment delays. Attacking the form of your documents and asking for time are two compatible lines of defence, and judges examine both.
Concretely, a landlord based abroad should assemble, before the hearing, a complete French-language file: the signed lease with its termination clause, the full history of payments and arrears stated month by month, proof of the housing-aid notifications, the guarantor’s engagement, the insurance declaration, and evidence that the current rent position is tracked to the hearing date. If you are considering selling the flat with its sitting tenant rather than evicting, or weighing eviction against a negotiated departure, raise the question early with our real estate team in Paris, because the economics of each route diverge quickly once arrears pass six months.
II. From the Court Order to Actual Recovery: Delays, Winter Truce and Enforcement
Winning the court phase does not mean recovering the flat the next morning. French law deliberately inserts shock absorbers between a termination ruling and a physical eviction: the judge may reschedule the debt over years, the tenant may obtain grace periods, the winter truce freezes enforcement for five months, and the final removal requires police assistance that the prefect may delay. A foreign landlord must budget for this timeline in both cash flow and patience. This second part maps the judge’s powers at the hearing and the enforcement route afterwards, including the alternative of ending the lease by notice rather than for arrears.
A. The Judge’s Powers: Payment Schedules, Grace Periods and the Notice Alternative
At the hearing, the judge first audits the landlord’s file: validity of the lease, regularity of the commandement de payer, exact amount of the debt, and compliance with the prior notifications. If the file is defective, the termination is not recorded and the landlord starts again. If the file is regular, the judge has two families of tools: record the termination and order payment and eviction, or keep the tenant in place under a court-supervised repayment plan.
The general civil mechanism is Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code: “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.” In English: the judge may defer or spread payment over up to two years, weighing the debtor’s situation against the creditor’s needs, with suspension of enforcement in the meantime. In residential tenancy matters, the special regime goes further: the official procedure allows the judge to grant a repayment schedule of up to three years and to suspend the effects of the termination clause during repayment, provided the tenant has resumed full payment of the current rent before the hearing and shows an ability to clear the arrears. Miss one instalment and the lease terminates; respect the schedule and the tenant stays.
Crucially for landlords, the tenant’s request for time is never out of time while the case is live. The Cour de cassation has ruled that “Qu’en statuant ainsi, alors qu’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, la cour d’appel a violé le texte susvisé ;” In English: no deadline is imposed on the tenant to ask the judge for payment delays and suspension of the termination clause, a principle laid down under the former two-month wording of Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 but expressing a structural feature of the procedure. Expect the request to be made on the morning of the hearing, and make sure your file answers it in advance: is current rent actually being paid again, and is the proposed schedule realistic?
Some landlords prefer a different exit: the congé (notice to vacate) for repossession or sale under Article 15 of the Act of 6 July 1989, rather than termination for arrears. The congé pour reprise (notice to repossess for personal occupation) lets an owner recover the dwelling to live in it, subject to six months’ notice, protected tenants and a genuine intention. The courts test that intention seriously but fairly: in July 2025 the Cour de cassation approved judges who held that “la réalité de la volonté du bailleur de reprendre le bien loué ne saurait dépendre uniquement de sa situation financière et patrimoniale” In English: whether the landlord genuinely intends to repossess cannot be judged on his financial and asset situation alone, so a landlord of modest means, himself a tenant elsewhere and seeking to cut his housing costs, may perfectly well serve a genuine repossession notice. The same decision usefully recalls that a tenant who mounts an arguable challenge to the notice is not an abusive litigant: the appeal court was overturned for awarding the landlord damages for abusive resistance where the tenant’s defence deserved examination.
The mirror image protects tenants against sham notices: a landlord who repossesses on false pretences and immediately re-lets at a higher rent faces damages. But good faith has limits in the other direction too. Where the stated motive disappears for reasons outside the landlord’s control before the notice takes effect, the Cour de cassation has held that “la loi n’impose pas au bailleur d’informer le locataire de la disparition du motif du congé pour une cause extérieure au bailleur” In English: the statute does not oblige the landlord to inform the tenant of the disappearance of the notice’s motive for a cause outside the landlord. A foreign owner whose personal plans genuinely collapse, for health, family or professional reasons beyond his control, is not automatically at fault for failing to send an update. Fraudulent notices remain sanctionable; genuinely frustrated plans are a different matter, and the distinction turns on evidence.
B. After Judgment: the Order to Vacate, the Winter Truce and Police Enforcement
Once the judge records termination and orders eviction, a judicial officer serves a commandement de quitter les lieux (order to vacate), which reproduces Article L412-1 to Article L412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures and tells the occupant from which date he must leave and that he may be forcibly removed after that date. Usually the occupant has two months to leave, but the judge may reduce or remove that period, particularly where he finds bad faith. During that period the occupant can petition the enforcement judge for extra time, a délai de grâce (grace period) of one month to one year based on age, health, good faith and rehousing efforts, and can organise the departure. For a landlord, this means that even a clean judgment routinely converts into several more months of waiting, and often into an indemnité d’occupation (occupation payment) rather than rent, which must then be recovered like any other debt.
Then comes the trêve hivernale (winter truce), the rule foreign owners understand least and resent most. From 1 November to 31 March each year, currently 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2026, a landlord cannot have a tenant evicted even with a court decision in his favour, and this applies for every ground of eviction including unpaid rent. Eviction operations are suspended; they resume on 1 April. The protection has narrow exceptions only: occupants who have been offered rehousing matching their family needs, residents of buildings under a safety order, and squatters occupying a home, garage or land. Note the asymmetry that matters for procedure: the truce suspends enforcement measures, not court orders. The Cour de cassation has confirmed that “l’astreinte n’étant pas une mesure d’exécution forcée”, the winter-truce provisions, which only stay expulsion measures not yet executed, do not prevent a court, even during the truce period, from ordering vacation of the premises backed by a penalty payment to encourage compliance. In English: a daily penalty can still be ordered during the truce to push the occupant to leave voluntarily, even though forced removal must wait.
After the truce, if the occupant still refuses to leave, the judicial officer cannot use force alone: the landlord must request the concours de la force publique (assistance of the police) from the prefect, in Paris from the prefect of police. The prefect may grant or refuse assistance; silence for two months counts as refusal. A refusal does not end the story: the landlord can claim compensation from the State for the loss caused, including lost rent and charges, costs tied to an aborted sale, and officers’ fees, first by a registered claim to the prefect and then, if refused or unanswered, before the administrative court within two months. Where the refusal falls during the winter truce, compensation runs only from the end of the protected period. Foreign landlords should treat this State-liability route as a real second file, with its own evidence and deadlines, not as an automatic cheque.
Two forward-looking points complete the picture. First, the framework keeps moving: two decrees of 12 February 2026, published in the Official Journal of 13 February 2026, amend the management of rent arrears for tenants receiving personal housing benefit, and they enter into force on 1 January 2027. Landlords of aided tenants should check the new thresholds and notification circuits with their manager before that date, because the current procedure described on the official unpaid-rent and eviction page will be updated accordingly. Second, Paris and Île-de-France practice has its own geography: cases go before the protection litigation judge of the tribunal judiciaire of the property’s location, Paris enforcement requests run through the prefecture of police, and the Paris housing advice agency can inform both sides. A landlord living in London, New York or Dubai gains enormously from a Paris-based representative who receives the judicial officer’s documents, calendars the six-week and two-month periods, and attends the hearing, because every one of those steps is served in French and runs on short clocks. Our Paris real estate team handles exactly this chain for non-resident owners.
Conclusion
Evicting a non-paying tenant in France is a marathon with checkpoints, not a sprint: amicable demand and mandatory conciliation for small debts, a strictly drafted commandement de payer served by a judicial officer, prior notifications to the housing-aid bodies with a fresh notice for each summons, a hearing at least six weeks after service, possible repayment schedules of up to three years, an order to vacate with two months to leave, grace periods of up to a year, a five-month winter truce, and finally police assistance with possible State compensation if it is refused. At every checkpoint the Cour de cassation shows the same philosophy: formalities protect the tenant, but a landlord with a complete, honest and timely file gets through. The foreign owner’s structural handicap is distance, and the remedy is anticipation: a French-speaking manager, a calendar of the six-week, two-month and hearing deadlines, immediate activation of the guarantor and the insurer, and no unlawful fees inflating the debt.
Before choosing between termination for arrears, a repossession notice or a negotiated departure against payment, have the file reviewed while the arrears are still small. The earlier a specialist checks the lease clause, the payment order and the notification circuit, the more options remain open, including a court-approved schedule that restores payment without losing the tenant. Litigation begun on a defective commandement de payer is the most expensive lesson in French tenancy law; a verified file is the cheapest insurance a non-resident landlord can buy.
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