You own a flat in France, the tenant has stopped paying, and the lease alone will not fill the gap. Every residential letting has three potential debtors, not one: the tenant who signed the lease, the garant, the guarantor who signed the guarantee deed, the acte de cautionnement, and in many managed lettings an insurer behind an unpaid-rent policy, the garantie des loyers impayés. British landlords who chase only the tenant often discover too late that the tenant has nothing to seize, while the guarantor’s file was never checked and the insurance declaration deadline expired months ago. The guarantor and the insurer are where the money usually is, but each pays only if you activated the right paperwork at the right moment: a valid guarantee deed at signing, a formal demand served on the guarantor as well as the tenant, a claim declared to the insurer within the policy time limit, and a court application that names every debtor together. Brexit changed how you travel to France for a hearing, not the substance of these rights: the same statute, the Act of 6 July 1989 on landlord and tenant relations, and in particular its article 22-1 on guarantees and its article 24 on termination for arrears, applies whether you hold a British passport or a French one. This guide explains, for a British landlord after Brexit, how to make the guarantor pay, which defences the guarantor will raise, how to trigger the Visale scheme or a private unpaid-rent policy, and how collection works in practice in Paris and the wider Ile-de-France. The general eviction sequence itself, from the formal demand to the court order and the removal, is covered in the companion pieces for British tenants facing possession proceedings, which show what arguments you should expect from the other side.
I. How do you make the guarantor pay the arrears?
The guarantor is the person or organisation that promised in writing to pay the rent if the tenant does not. In French lettings that promise almost always takes one of two forms: a private individual, often a parent, who signs a guarantee deed, or an institutional guarantor, most commonly Visale, the scheme run by Action Logement that guarantees young tenants and employees. Both forms answer the same commercial question, which is whether anyone solvent stands behind the tenant, but they are triggered through different doors. The private guarantor is pursued through the courts on the basis of the deed. The institutional guarantor is called upon through its own declaration platform, within its own deadlines, and it then recovers from the tenant itself. A landlord who understands both doors at the moment the first payment is missed recovers in months; a landlord who discovers the guarantee deed only at the eviction hearing has usually lost a year. The official guidance on guarantees given for a tenant in private housing sets out the two types of guarantee and their consequences, and the English-language page on the Visale guarantee for arrears and damage describes the institutional route.
A. Who is bound, for what, and what must you send the guarantor?
Start by reading the deed, because everything turns on its wording. The guarantee deed identifies the guaranteed lease, the maximum amount or the debts covered, and above all the nature of the undertaking. A caution simple, an ordinary guarantee, means you must first demand payment from the tenant and establish that the tenant cannot pay before turning to the guarantor. A caution solidaire, a joint and several guarantee, means you can claim directly against the guarantor from the first missed payment, without first pursuing the tenant and without showing that the tenant is unable to pay. The official guidance states this distinction in plain terms, and standard deeds reproduce it. Most professional letting agents in France insist on joint and several wording, and where your flat is managed under a mandat de gestion you should check today whether the deed in your file actually contains it, because an ordinary guarantee against an elusive tenant adds a whole preliminary stage to the case. Two connected shields come with the deed: the benefit of discussion, the bénéfice de discussion, which is the right to require the creditor to pursue the tenant first, and the benefit of division, the bénéfice de division, which is the right, where several guarantors stand together, to require the creditor to divide claims between them. Model deeds state expressly whether the guarantor keeps these benefits or waives them, using a set form of words in which the guarantor acknowledges being deprived of the benefits and confirms keeping them otherwise. If the deed is silent or ambiguous on solidarity and on these benefits, the court construes the ambiguity against the creditor, which is one more reason to have the deed reviewed before the dispute rather than during it.
The statute frames all of this tightly. Article 22-1 of the Act of 6 July 1989 governs guarantees in residential lettings: it controls what security can be demanded alongside the lease, the formalities of the guarantee deed, and the combination of securities, so that a landlord cannot stack every protection at once. In particular, the article restricts combining a personal guarantor with unpaid-rent insurance covering the same risk, which means the choice between a private guarantor and a policy is structural and must be made at signing, not improvised after arrears appear. Where the letting is a flatshare, a colocation, the companion provision on article 22-2 of the same Act matters: a solidarity clause in a shared lease makes each tenant liable for the whole rent, and each guarantor is then indirectly exposed for the whole debt through the tenant guaranteed. British owners of Paris studios let to two students should read that clause twice, because the parent who guaranteed one student may answer for both rents.
Once arrears appear, the guarantor must be brought into the procedure immediately, not at the end. The formal demand to pay, the commandement de payer served by the enforcement officer, the commissaire de justice, must be notified to the guarantor as well as to the tenant, so that no guarantor can later say the debt grew behind closed doors. The demand itself must point to the termination clause, quantify every euro, and carry every statutory warning: the Cour de cassation examines these documents closely, and in a decision of 18 December 2025, Third Civil Chamber, appeal no. 24-12.423, available at Cour de cassation, 18 December 2025, no. 24-12.423, the Court worked from a demand described as “un commandement, visant la clause résolutoire”, a demand expressly referring to the termination clause, before ruling on what followed. Serve the same rigour on the guarantor: the ledger, the breakdown, the warnings. For Visale-backed tenancies the parallel step is the online declaration of arrears on the scheme platform within the time limit stated in the Visale undertaking, with the lease, the ledger and the proof of the tenant’s default attached. Visale then pays the landlord according to its undertaking and pursues the tenant in its own name, which removes the collection risk from the landlord provided the declaration was timely and the file was eligible from the start.
B. Which defences will the guarantor raise and how do you answer them?
Guarantors who are asked to pay several thousand euros rarely pay on first letter, and their defences follow a predictable catalogue. The first is the deed itself: no signature, a forged or photocopied signature, an amount left blank, a lease misidentified, a deed signed after the lease without clear reference to it. Courts annul defective deeds without mercy, so keep the original signed deed with the lease from day one and never accept a guarantee by email alone. The second defence is duration: the deed may guarantee a fixed term, the initial lease only, and the guarantor argues the arrears arose after expiry or under a renewal never guaranteed. Check whether the deed extends to renewals and amendments, the avenants, and whether each renewal was notified where the deed requires it. The third defence is the benefits of discussion and division described above: with an ordinary guarantee, the guarantor requires you to exhaust remedies against the tenant first, and with several guarantors, each requires division. The answer is in the deed’s solidarity and waiver wording, which is why that wording matters more than any other paragraph.
The fourth defence is the fashionable one, and landlords should understand exactly how far it goes. Guarantors sometimes argue that their undertaking was manifestly disproportionate to their means when signed, and therefore unenforceable. The leading decision states the rule for professional creditors: in a decision of 26 September 2018, First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 17-17.903, available at Cour de cassation, 26 September 2018, no. 17-17.903, the Court ruled, under visa of consumer-code and civil-code provisions: “Vu l’article L. 341-4, devenu L. 332-1 du code de la consommation, ensemble les articles 2305 et 2310 du code civil ;”, then held: “Attendu qu’aux termes du premier de ces textes, un créancier professionnel ne peut se prévaloir d’un contrat de cautionnement conclu par une personne physique dont l’engagement était, lors de sa conclusion, manifestement disproportionné à ses biens et revenus, à moins que le patrimoine de cette caution, au moment où celle-ci est appelée, ne lui permette de faire face à son obligation ; que la sanction ainsi prévue prive le contrat de cautionnement d’effet à l’égard tant du créancier que des cofidéjusseurs lorsque, ayant acquitté la dette, ils exercent leur action récursoire ;”. In plain English: a professional creditor cannot enforce a guarantee signed by an individual where the undertaking was manifestly disproportionate to that person’s assets and income at signing, unless the guarantor’s means at the time of the call allow payment, and the sanction strips the guarantee of effect including against co-guarantors seeking contribution. The decision concerned a bank loan guarantee, and its visa targets professional creditors, so a private British landlord letting one flat is not the typical addressee of the rule; but an agent-backed institutional setup may be examined more strictly, and in every case the practical lesson is the same. Take a real file at signing: three recent pay slips, the latest tax notice, proof of the rent-to-income ratio, and a guarantee amount the file can plausibly carry. A documented file defeats the disproportionality argument before it is raised, and it is also exactly what an unpaid-rent insurer demands to see.
II. How do you make the insurance pay and actually collect the money?
Where no solvent guarantor stands behind the tenant, the second payer is the insurer, either the private unpaid-rent policy taken out at signing or, for eligible tenancies, the Visale scheme. Insurance does not forgive weak files; it audits them. Every policy conditions payment on checks performed before the lease and on declarations made promptly after default, and the most common reason insurers refuse payment is not exclusion clauses but missed deadlines and unchecked tenant files. The landlord who treats the policy as a formality at signing and rediscovers it a year later usually recovers nothing. The landlord who declares the first missed payment within the contractual time limit, keeps the ledger, and follows the insurer’s recovery protocol first, recovers the scheduled payments while the court case runs. Read the policy this week, before you need it, and diary every deadline it contains.
A. What does the unpaid-rent policy require and which deadlines kill the claim?
A private unpaid-rent policy, the garantie des loyers impayés, typically covers rent and charges, sometimes legal costs, up to a ceiling and after an excess period, in exchange for two disciplines. At signing, the tenant file must meet the insurer’s solvency grid: identity, income evidence, employment contract or tax notices, and a rent-to-income ratio the insurer sets. Files assembled loosely, with missing notices or approximate income, give the insurer its first refusal ground, and no court will rewrite the grid afterwards. During the lease, each missed payment must be declared within the short contractual window, often counted in days from the due date, with the ledger and reminders attached, and the landlord must follow the insurer’s staged recovery: reminders, formal demand, then legal action. Late declaration is the classic claim-killer, because the insurer argues the delay aggravated the loss. Keep proof of every declaration and every acknowledgement, and never let reluctance to chase money delay the paperwork: the policy rewards early declarers and punishes silent ones.
The structural choice between guarantor and insurance must have been made correctly at signing, because the statute restricts combining them. As noted above, article 22-1 of the 1989 Act restricts a landlord who is already covered by unpaid-rent insurance from also demanding a personal guarantor for the same risk, so the file should show one coherent protection route, not both stacked informally. Where the route is Visale, the discipline is the scheme’s own: eligibility of the tenant at entry, a valid Visale visa number attached to the lease, and declaration of each missed payment on the platform within the undertaking’s time limit. The English-language page on the Visale guarantee describes the coverage for arrears and damage from the tenant’s perspective, and the landlord’s mirror is the undertaking signed with Action Logement, which states the ceilings, the excess and the declaration windows. A frequent British-landlord error is assuming the managing agent handled Visale: ask for the visa number and the declaration receipts in writing, because an agent who never declared leaves the landlord with neither Visale payments nor a private guarantor to sue.
Alongside the insurance track, the court track must name every debtor from the start. The summons before the protection litigation judge, the juge des contentieux de la protection, should seek payment against the tenant and the guarantor together, so that one judgment orders both to pay and the enforcement officer can pursue whichever has assets. The official English-language guidance on unpaid rent and eviction of the tenant describes the court stage from the landlord’s side, including the payment order, the finding that the lease is terminated, the eviction order and the fixing of an occupation payment, the indemnité d’occupation. At the hearing the judge may still grant the tenant grace periods of up to two years under article 1343-5 of the Civil Code, extended to three years where the tenant can repay, and a schedule granted to the tenant slows enforcement against the guarantor in practice, since courts dislike seizing a guarantor while the tenant is paying to schedule. Build the case so the schedule, if granted, is short and conditional: full resumption of current rent first, then arrears to schedule, with termination revived on default. That structure protects both the eviction and the claim against the guarantor.
B. What is different in Paris and Ile-de-France, and which mistakes cost British landlords most?
In Paris and the inner suburbs the procedure is the same statute applied under greater pressure: heavier court lists, longer gaps between steps, and guarantors who are often themselves advised. The protection litigation judge sits at the judicial court of the place where the flat is located, so a flat in the capital goes before the Paris judicial court, and the summons, the notifications and the enforcement all run through Paris offices with Paris delays. Allow more weeks than the statutory minimums at each stage, instruct the enforcement officer early, and never let the file sleep between the demand and the summons. Where the flat is managed by an agent, check that the management mandate authorises proceedings against the guarantor as well as the tenant, and that the agent’s own rent guarantee, if any, has been triggered within its declared deadlines. Where you manage directly from Britain, give the officer a reliable channel and a postal address for service in France if possible, because returned mail and missed appointments add months, and have the guarantee deed, the lease and the ledger ready in French: courts, officers and insurers work in French, and translation improvisation at the hearing helps no one.
The mistakes that cost British landlords most are all made before the dispute. The first is accepting a guarantor without a file: a deed signed by a student friend with no income is paper, not security, and the disproportionality defence described above turns that paper into nothing. The second is stacking protections informally, demanding both a parent’s guarantee and an insurance policy for the same risk in breach of the combination rules, which hands both the guarantor and the insurer a defence. The third is forgetting the guarantor in the demand and the summons, pursuing the tenant alone for a year and then discovering the claim against the guarantor has weakened with time. The fourth is the deposit confusion at the end: the deposit, the dépôt de garantie, is security for performance of the lease, returned within one month or two months depending on whether the incoming and outgoing inspection reports match, with a ten per cent monthly penalty for late return. The Cour de cassation applies that article strictly: in a decision of 31 May 2018, Third Civil Chamber, appeal no. 17-18.069, available at Cour de cassation, 31 May 2018, no. 17-18.069, the Court recalled: “Attendu qu’il résulte de ce texte que le dépôt de garantie est prévu pour garantir l’exécution de ses obligations locatives par le locataire et que, lorsque les locaux loués se situent dans un immeuble collectif, la régularisation définitive des charges et la restitution du solde, déduction faite, le cas échéant, des sommes restant dues au bailleur et de celles dont celui-ci pourrait être tenu en lieu et place du locataire, interviennent dans le mois qui suit l’approbation définitive des comptes de l’immeuble”. Set the arrears against the deposit through the final account, not by pocketing it mid-dispute. The fifth mistake is self-help: entering the flat, changing the lock or removing furniture before the enforcement officer acts exposes the landlord to prosecution for forcing a person from their home, an offence punished under article 226-4-2 of the Penal Code. No arrears justify it, and a tenant who was about to leave will use it to reverse the momentum.
Brexit itself adds only a thin layer. Your rights as a landlord do not depend on nationality or residence, and no additional permit is needed to own, let, guarantee-check or sue over a French flat. What has changed is practical: travel to attend a hearing now follows third-country rules, powers of attorney signed abroad may need an apostille to satisfy a cautious bank or insurer, and every exchange with the court, the officer, the prefecture and the insurer runs in French. The owners who recover fastest share the same profile whatever their passport: a checked guarantor file or an eligible insurance route chosen at signing, a demand served promptly on tenant and guarantor together, declarations to the insurer inside the contractual windows, one court case naming every debtor, and no self-help at any point.
Conclusion
A British landlord whose French tenant stops paying should look past the tenant from the first missed payment. Read the guarantee deed and identify whether it is joint and several or ordinary, check the waiver of the benefits of discussion and division, and serve the formal demand on the guarantor at the same time as on the tenant. Declare each missed payment to the insurer or to Visale inside the applicable time limit, and keep every receipt. Bring tenant and guarantor before the protection litigation judge in a single case, asking for payment, termination, eviction and an occupation payment together, and structure any grace schedule so default revives termination. Set the arrears against the deposit only through the final account, within its return deadlines. At every stage the documents that win are the boring ones: the signed deed, the checked file, the ledger, the proofs of service and the declaration receipts. Put those in order first, and the guarantor or the insurer pays where the tenant cannot.