You found the flat in the 17th arrondissement, the price was agreed, the compromis de vente (preliminary sale agreement) was signed at the estate agent’s office or before the notaire (public officer who authenticates conveyances), and the deposit is sitting with the notaire. Then the telephone call comes: the seller has received a higher offer, or has simply changed their mind, and will not attend the signing of the acte authentique (notarial deed of sale). For a buyer living in London, New York or Dubai, the shock is doubled by distance: can a French seller really walk away from a signed compromis, and what can you do from abroad?
The short answer is reassuring. Under French law, a bilateral compromis — what lawyers call a promesse synallagmatique de vente (mutual promise of sale) — already binds both sides. The seller has no cooling-off right, and the buyer can in principle force the sale through the courts or claim the agreed penalty instead. The Cour de cassation confirmed this framework again in a ruling of 24 September 2026 that every foreign buyer should know about. This guide explains, step by step, how to react when the seller refuses to complete: the formal notice to serve, the consignment of the price, the court action for forced execution, the penalty clause alternative, and the traps — loan conditions, deadlines, deposits — that can undo even a strong case.
I. Your signed compromis already binds the seller
A. In French law the compromis is already the sale
Foreign buyers often assume that nothing is final until the notarial deed is signed. French property law says the opposite. Article 1589 of the Civil Code provides: “La promesse de vente vaut vente, lorsqu’il y a consentement réciproque des deux parties sur la chose et sur le prix.“. This means that a promise of sale counts as a sale as soon as both parties have mutually agreed on the property and the price. Article 1583 states the same principle in general terms: “Elle est parfaite entre les parties, et la propriété est acquise de droit à l’acheteur à l’égard du vendeur, dès qu’on est convenu de la chose et du prix, quoique la chose n’ait pas encore été livrée ni le prix payé.“. This means that the sale is complete between the parties, and ownership passes to the buyer as against the seller, once the thing and the price are agreed, even if the property has not been delivered and the price not yet paid. Add the foundational rule of article 1103 — “Les contrats légalement formés tiennent lieu de loi à ceux qui les ont faits.“, meaning lawfully formed contracts stand as law between those who made them — and the picture is clear: the notarial deed does not create the sale, it merely records it in authentic form so it can be published at the land registry.
The practical consequence was restated by the Third Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation on 24 September 2026 (appeal no. 24-18.981, official decision). In that case, a seller in French Guiana had signed a mutual promise covering two plots of land with a three-year period, then claimed the promise had lapsed and refused to sign the authentic deed — even though the buyer had paid the price into the notaire’s hands and served formal demands. The Court quashed the appeal judgment that had sided with the seller and recalled the settled rule: “sauf stipulation contraire, l’expiration du délai fixé pour la réitération de la vente par acte authentique ouvre le droit, pour chacune des parties, soit d’agir en exécution forcée de la vente, soit d’en demander la résolution et l’indemnisation de son préjudice“. This means that, unless otherwise agreed, once the deadline set for signing the authentic deed expires, each party may either sue for forced execution of the sale or seek its termination with compensation for their loss.
Two points in that ruling matter enormously for foreign buyers. First, the seller escapes only if the compromis itself says so: the deadline is fatal to the buyer only where it is expressly coupled with a lapse (caducité, automatic expiry) sanction, or where the parties made the notarial reiteration a constitutive element of their consent — a rare and difficult thing for a seller to prove after the fact. A seller who simply lets the date pass, or announces they will not sign, is in breach, not released. Second, the remedy belongs to both sides equally: the buyer can demand the property itself, not just money.
That 2026 decision did not invent the rule; it confirmed a line going back years, notably a published Third Civil Chamber ruling of 1 October 2020 (appeal no. 19-16.561, official decision), which the 2026 judgment expressly cites. The stability of this case law is good news: a seller’s lawyer cannot plausibly argue that the law is uncertain or evolving on this point.
There is one asymmetry buyers should understand from the start, because it shapes every negotiation. The ten-day cooling-off right (délai de rétractation, withdrawal period) of article L. 271-1 of the Construction and Housing Code belongs to the non-professional buyer only: “l’acquéreur non professionnel peut se rétracter dans un délai de dix jours“, meaning the non-professional buyer may withdraw within ten days. The seller has no equivalent right. A seller who signs and then has second thoughts cannot invoke any statutory change-of-mind period. Their only exits are the ones written into the compromis — typically the buyer’s loan condition or other conditions suspensives (suspensive conditions, clauses that cancel the deal if an event does not occur) — or some defect in consent they would have to prove in court. “I received a better offer” is never a legal ground for withdrawal.
B. Forcing the sale, step by step, including from abroad
Knowing you are right is not enough; French procedure requires you to build the file in the correct order. The sequence below is the one courts expect, and skipping a step weakens everything that follows.
First, put the seller formally on notice. The mise en demeure (formal demand to perform) is both a legal prerequisite for forced execution in kind under article 1221 of the Civil Code and a practical signal that you are serious. Article 1221 provides: “Le créancier d’une obligation peut, après mise en demeure, en poursuivre l’exécution en nature sauf si cette exécution est impossible ou s’il existe une disproportion manifeste entre son coût pour le débiteur de bonne foi et son intérêt pour le créancier.“. This means that the creditor of an obligation may, after a formal demand, pursue performance in kind unless it is impossible or there is a manifest disproportion between its cost to the good-faith debtor and its interest for the creditor. In a sale of a specific apartment or house, performance is neither impossible nor disproportionate: the property exists, and only the signature is missing. The demand should be served by a commissaire de justice (court officer, formerly huissier), not sent by ordinary email, giving the seller a short deadline — typically eight to fifteen days — to attend the notaire on a specified date. Keep every proof of service; the 2026 Guiana case shows courts scrutinising exactly what was demanded and when.
Second, show that you are ready to pay. French judges look unfavourably on a buyer who demands the keys without demonstrating the funds. If the price was to be paid cash, arrange for the funds to be available and, where the seller refuses to cooperate, consign them — deposit them with the Caisse des dépôts et consignations or leave them visibly earmarked with your notaire — so the court sees a buyer performing their own obligation. If the purchase is financed by a loan, keep the written loan offer or the bank’s agreement in principle current; an expired offer undermines the forced-execution claim and pushes you toward the penalty route instead.
Third, file the court action before the deadline politics turn against you. The claim is an action en exécution forcée (action for forced performance) brought before the tribunal judiciaire (general civil court) of the place where the property sits — for a Paris purchase, the Paris court. You ask the court to order the seller to sign within a set time under financial compulsion (astreinte, daily penalty for delay) and, crucially, to rule that the judgment itself will stand in place of the deed (le jugement vaudra vente, the judgment shall count as the sale) if the seller still refuses. Once final, that judgment is published at the land registry like a deed, and you become owner against the whole world.
Watch the limitation clock. Actions of this kind are subject to the five-year rule of article 2224: “Les actions personnelles ou mobilières se prescrivent par cinq ans à compter du jour où le titulaire d’un droit a connu ou aurait dû connaître les faits lui permettant de l’exercer.“. This means personal actions are time-barred after five years from the day the holder knew or should have known the facts enabling them to sue. And the 2020 ruling cited above adds a buyer-friendly precision: “Le fait justifiant l’exercice de cette action ne peut consister que dans la connaissance, par la partie titulaire de ce droit, du refus de son cocontractant d’exécuter son obligation principale de signer l’acte authentique de vente“. This means the event triggering the action can only be the right-holder’s knowledge of the other party’s refusal to perform their core obligation of signing the authentic deed — not merely the passing of the contractual signing date. In plain terms, a seller who goes quiet, hoping the calendar will silently extinguish your rights, is mistaken: time runs from when you actually learn of the refusal. Still, do not test this patience-based strategy; sue promptly while the property is still the seller’s to convey, because a resale to a good-faith third party in the meantime creates a far harder problem.
Distance is manageable. A non-resident buyer can act entirely through a French lawyer with a written authority (procuration, power of attorney), including for receiving service and signing procedural documents; physical presence at hearings is not required in these civil cases. Coordinate with your notaire, who holds the file, the deposit and the draft deed, and who can attest to the seller’s absence at the scheduled appointment — an attestation that carries real weight. For an overview of how a Paris-based practice handles this kind of cross-border purchase dispute, see our French real estate dispute practice in Paris.
II. When money answers better than keys: penalties, damages and safe exits
A. The penalty clause, damages and getting your deposit back
Forcing the sale is not always wise. The property may have lost its appeal, you may need the funds for another purchase, or eighteen months of procedure may simply cost more than the game is worth. That is what the clause pénale (penalty clause, agreed fixed sum for breach) is for — provided your compromis contains one. Standard French compromis templates usually stipulate around ten percent of the price payable by the defaulting party, but there is no statutory figure: only what is written counts. Without a written penalty clause, you fall back on ordinary damages, which require proving each euro of loss.
Where a clause exists, its mechanics favour the buyer who moves correctly. The Third Civil Chamber illustrated this on 5 March 2020 (appeal no. 19-13.386, official decision): the sellers’ own failure had prevented the sale, so the Court approved both the restitution of the buyer’s deposit to the buyer and the sellers’ condemnation under the penalty clause, holding that “la vente ne s’étant pas réalisée par leur fait, les promettants devaient restituer l’indemnité d’immobilisation“. This means that, the sale having failed through the promisors’ own doing, they had to return the deposit. The lesson is double: the deposit (indemnité d’immobilisation, immobilisation payment compensating the seller for taking the property off the market, or séquestre, escrowed deposit) comes back to the non-defaulting buyer, and the penalty is owed on top — they are not alternatives the seller can choose between.
Expect the seller to ask the judge to reduce the penalty, because article 1231-5 of the Civil Code expressly allows it: “le juge peut, même d’office, modérer ou augmenter la pénalité ainsi convenue si elle est manifestement excessive ou dérisoire“. This means the judge may, even on their own motion, moderate or increase the agreed penalty if it is manifestly excessive or derisory. In practice, French courts rarely slash a conventional ten percent in a straightforward seller-default sale where the buyer genuinely lost the property, moving costs, loan-file fees and months of searching — but the risk exists if the clause sets an extravagant figure or if the buyer suffered little demonstrable harm. Document your losses early: refused loan offers that expired, rental costs incurred while waiting, travel for the planned signing, and any price difference if the Paris market rose between the compromis and the breach. Conversely, the same article lets the judge increase a derisory penalty, which protects buyers locked into old templates with token amounts.
Beyond the clause, the general remedy is termination (résolution, judicial cancellation of the contract for breach) plus damages for the full loss, exactly as the 2026 ruling frames the buyer’s option. Resolution unwinds the contract and returns the deposit; damages then cover the additional harm — typically the costs thrown away and, where provable, the loss of a bargain if comparable properties now cost more. Cumulation has limits: you cannot collect both forced execution and termination for the same contract, and the penalty clause, once triggered, replaces ordinary damages for the delay it covers unless the contract says otherwise. Your lawyer’s choice at the filing stage — keys or money — therefore commits the whole strategy, and it must be made with the file’s strengths honestly assessed.
One practical warning about the deposit itself. Money paid at the compromis stage is usually held by the notaire and released only on joint instruction or court order. A seller in breach cannot simply instruct the notaire to hand it over, and a buyer should never accept an informal “refund minus costs” proposal from the seller’s side without checking what the penalty clause would have yielded. Conversely, never stop a bank transfer or cancel financing theatrically to “punish” the seller: your own performance must stay spotless, because any buyer-side breach hands the seller the resolution argument they are looking for.
B. The traps that defeat foreign buyers, and Paris practice
Strong rights lose cases when procedure or parallel clauses are mishandled. Four traps recur in files with non-resident buyers.
The first trap is the loan condition — but in mirror image. Most foreign buyers purchase under a condition suspensive d’obtention de prêt (suspensive condition of obtaining a mortgage): if the loan is refused, the deal falls and the deposit is refunded. Sellers who want out sometimes argue the buyer did not genuinely try to borrow, hoping to keep the deposit or flip the breach onto the buyer. The Cour de cassation polices this strictly in both directions. On 27 November 2025 (appeal no. 24-11.704, official decision), it quashed an appeal ruling in a case where the compromis required the buyer to file two simultaneous loan applications matching the agreed terms, and where the contract stated that “toute demande non conforme aux stipulations contractuelles notamment quant au montant emprunté, au taux et à la durée de l’emprunt entraînera la réalisation de la condition suspensive“. This means any application not matching the contractual terms — particularly as to amount borrowed, rate and duration — triggers fulfilment of the condition. The buyer who files a token or deliberately off-spec application can therefore be deemed to have fulfilled the condition and lose the deposit. So keep every bank refusal letter, file applications that match the compromis figures to the euro, and meet the contractual filing deadlines: your own loan file is the seller’s favourite counter-attack, and a clean one neutralises it.
The statute reinforces the protection when the loan genuinely fails. Article L. 313-41 of the Consumer Code provides: “Lorsque la condition suspensive prévue au premier alinéa n’est pas réalisée, toute somme versée d’avance par l’acquéreur à l’autre partie ou pour le compte de cette dernière est immédiatement et intégralement remboursable sans retenue ni indemnité à quelque titre que ce soit.“. This means that when the loan condition is not fulfilled, every sum paid in advance by the buyer is immediately and fully refundable, with no deduction or indemnity on any ground. And article 1304-3 of the Civil Code adds a general shield: “La condition suspensive est réputée accomplie si celui qui y avait intérêt en a empêché l’accomplissement.“. This means a suspensive condition is deemed fulfilled where the party interested in its failure prevented it from occurring — so a seller who sabotages your financing cannot then rely on the failed condition.
The second trap is informal communication. Angry telephone calls, WhatsApp messages proposing “arrangements”, or emails suggesting you accept a discount for a quick release all become exhibits. From the seller’s first sign of retreat, communicate in writing, through your lawyer or notaire, in French wherever the contract requires it. Acknowledge nothing about the seller’s alleged justifications — unauthorised works, a claimed planning problem, a family disagreement — without verification, because some may be genuine conditions suspensives (such as a pre-emption right exercised by the City of Paris, or a refused planning clearance) that lawfully release the seller. Ask the notaire to confirm in writing whether any contractual condition has actually been triggered before you choose between forced execution and penalty.
The third trap is Paris-specific timing and forum practice. For property in Paris and the inner suburbs, the competent court is the tribunal judiciaire of the property’s location, served through a local commissaire de justice; provisional measures to freeze the situation — for example, publishing a court order to warn third parties against buying the flat from the defaulting seller — must be requested fast, in days rather than weeks. Notaires in Paris routinely hold deposits as séquestre and will not release them without both signatures or a court decision, which protects you but also means your money stays locked during the dispute: budget for that illiquidity. If you live outside France, grant the procuration early, designate a French address for service at your lawyer’s office (élection de domicile, chosen address for service), and keep a certified French translation of your identity documents ready, since courts and notaires will ask for them. These details decide whether your forced-execution action is filed in three weeks or three months, and in a rising Paris market that gap is money. Our Paris real estate team assisting foreign buyers and owners handles exactly this coordination between notaire, court officer and court.
The fourth trap is choosing the wrong remedy for the wrong reason. Forced execution takes time — often well over a year to a final enforceable decision — during which the property cannot sensibly be improved or re-let by you, and mortgage offers expire. The penalty route is usually faster and converts the dispute into a recoverable sum, but it caps your upside at the clause amount plus proven extras, and you lose a flat you may have loved. Weigh three factors before filing: how much the market has moved since the compromis, whether your financing can be renewed on similar terms, and whether the seller is solvent enough to pay a penalty (a heavily mortgaged seller with no other assets may make the “keys” option the only valuable one). Neither path promises any particular outcome — only a judge decides — but a buyer who serves a proper mise en demeure, consigns the price, files promptly and keeps a spotless loan file arrives before the court in the strongest possible position, whether the goal is the apartment or its price in money.
Conclusion
A French seller who signs a compromis de vente and then refuses to complete is not exercising a right; they are breaching a contract that French law already treats as the sale itself. The buyer entering the dispute armed with the Civil Code — mutual consent made the sale under articles 1589 and 1583, contracts bind under article 1103 — and with the Cour de cassation’s September 2026 confirmation that the buyer may choose between forced execution and termination with damages, starts from a position of strength few foreign buyers expect. The procedure rewards discipline: formal demand by court officer, demonstrated readiness to pay with consignment where needed, prompt filing before the property’s court with a claim that the judgment stand as the sale, and honest assessment of whether the penalty clause offers the better commercial outcome. The traps are equally clear: a neglected loan file, informal concessions in writing, missed limitation logic, and money locked as séquestre without a liquidity plan. Handle those four points, and the seller’s change of mind becomes a remediable breach rather than a lost home — resolved either by the keys you were promised or by the money the contract provides.