Your tenant in Paris has stopped paying the rent. Two months pass, then three, and the arrears keep growing while the tenant stops answering your messages. From abroad, the situation feels both urgent and opaque: can you change the locks, cut off the utilities, or simply tell the tenant the lease is over? French law answers no to all three, and any shortcut can backfire badly. Eviction for unpaid rent follows a mandatory step-by-step procedure, and each step has its own deadline, its own formal requirements, and its own judge. This guide walks a foreign landlord through that procedure exactly as it stands in 2026: the formal payment order that starts everything, the court stage where the lease is terminated, and the enforcement stage where the flat is actually recovered, including the winter truce and the specific practice of Paris courts. It also flags the reform that changes the early-warning thresholds from 1 January 2027.
French residential leases are governed by the Act of 6 July 1989, and since the Act of 27 July 2023 every residential lease must contain a clause résolutoire (termination clause) covering non-payment of rent or charges and non-payment of the security deposit. That clause is powerful, but it never operates automatically: it takes effect only after a formal order to pay has gone unanswered, and the judge keeps wide powers to grant the tenant time to pay. The official service-public guide to unpaid rent and eviction describes the same sequence from the landlord’s side, and the developments below follow that sequence, citing the statutes and the Court of Cassation decisions that control each stage.
I. Getting the lease terminated: the payment order and the judge
A. The commandement de payer: six weeks that decide everything
Everything starts with a commandement de payer (formal order to pay) served by a commissaire de justice (court officer, formerly known as huissier de justice). Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 states the rule in one sentence: « Cette clause ne produit effet que six semaines après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux » (art. 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In plain English: the termination clause produces no effect until six weeks after a payment order has remained unpaid. No payment order, no termination, however large the arrears. And because the six-week period runs from service of the order, a landlord living abroad should instruct the court officer immediately rather than spending months on informal reminders; every week lost before service postpones the whole timetable by a week.
The payment order must contain six items, on pain of nullity, and a foreign landlord should check each of them on the draft the officer prepares: the statement that the tenant has six weeks to pay the debt; the monthly amount of rent and charges; the breakdown of the debt; the warning that failing to pay or to request time to pay exposes the tenant to court proceedings for termination of the lease and eviction; the address of the departmental solidarity fund for housing (fonds de solidarité pour le logement) where the tenant can seek financial help; and the statement that the tenant may at any time ask the competent court for a grace period under article 1343-5 of the Civil Code (art. 24, I). If the lease is secured by a guarantor (caution), the order must be served on the guarantor within fifteen days of service on the tenant; otherwise the guarantor cannot be held liable for penalties or late interest, as the same paragraph provides (art. 24, I). Missing or incorrect mentions are the most common reason payment orders collapse in court, so this document deserves more attention than any other in the file.
Service of the payment order also triggers the prevention machinery. When the tenant has gone two straight months without paying rent or charges, or when the debt reaches twice the monthly rent excluding charges, the court officer must report the order to the local commission for the coordination of measures to prevent rental evictions (Ccapex), for landlords who are individuals or family property companies; the State representative then tasks a designated body with preparing a social and financial assessment (diagnostic social et financier) of the tenant before the court stage (art. 24, I). Landlords that are other legal entities face a stricter gate: on pain of inadmissibility, they may not serve the court summons seeking termination until two months after the Ccapex has been seised, and that seisin is deemed constituted where arrears previously reported to the housing-benefit bodies persist (art. 24, II). A foreign investor holding the flat through a company should therefore calendar this two-month corporate waiting period from the start, because serving the summons one day early makes the whole claim inadmissible.
Two practical points complete this first stage. First, when the debt is 5,000 euros or less, the official service-public procedure requires an attempt at amicable resolution, through a justice conciliator or a mediator, before the judge can be asked to terminate the lease; the attempt is free with a conciliator and it must be documented (service-public, unpaid rent and eviction of tenant). Second, from the very first missed payment, the landlord can call on the tenant’s guarantor, the Visale guarantee or the unpaid-rent insurance (garantie des loyers impayés); Visale in particular requires the arrears to be declared quickly, within thirty days, so waiting undermines that safety net (service-public, unpaid rent and eviction of tenant). Acting early on guarantees costs nothing and sometimes resolves the file without any court case.
Finally, landlords receiving housing benefits on the tenant’s behalf, or whose tenant receives them, must report the arrears to the family allowance fund (Caf) or the agricultural mutual fund (MSA) once the statutory threshold is reached; failing to report exposes the landlord to a fine, currently stated at 8,010 euros in the official guide (service-public, unpaid rent and eviction of tenant). The thresholds themselves are changing: a decree of 12 February 2026 provides that from 1 January 2027 arrears will be established as soon as the debt exceeds 450 euros or the tenant accumulates three months of default, and that the tenant will keep receiving housing benefit even after the lease is terminated, unless the Ccapex suspends it for proven bad faith or for nuisance established by a final eviction judgment (service-public, unpaid rent: the rules will change). Foreign landlords should apply the new reflex now: report early, in writing, and keep proof.
B. Before the judge: termination is never automatic
If the six weeks expire without full payment and without an agreed repayment schedule, the landlord summons the tenant before the juge des contentieux de la protection (protection-litigation judge) of the place where the flat is located, asking the court to order payment of the arrears and costs, to record that the lease is terminated, to order eviction and to fix an indemnité d’occupation (occupation indemnity) for the period the tenant stays after termination (service-public, unpaid rent and eviction of tenant). On pain of inadmissibility, the summons must be notified by the court officer to the State representative in the département at least six weeks before the hearing, so that the social and financial assessment can be prepared and sent to the judge, with the parties’ observations attached; the tenant is separately informed of the right to ask the judge for payment delays (art. 24, III). These requirements also apply where the landlord asks the court to order termination for rental debt rather than merely recording the clause, and to additional or counterclaims seeking termination for rental debt (art. 24, IV).
The decisive point for a foreign landlord to internalise is that the judge is not a rubber stamp. The Court of Cassation held on 12 February 2026 that courts must examine whether the termination clause was implemented in good faith by the landlords before recording termination: « les contrats doivent être exécutés de bonne foi » (Cass. 3rd civ., 12 Feb. 2026, no. 24-16.691). In that case, the court of appeal had recorded termination merely because the tenant could not prove payment of one month’s rent within the one-month period stated in the payment order; the Court of Cassation quashed the decision for failure to investigate the good-faith argument the tenant had raised. A landlord who serves the order while refusing any discussion, who inflates the debt statement, or who rushes to court the day after the deadline therefore takes a real risk of seeing the case delayed or the clause neutralised; conversely, a file showing reminders, a proposed schedule and an exact debt breakdown passes the good-faith test without difficulty.
The judge’s second power is time: at the request of either party or of the court’s own motion, the judge may grant the tenant payment delays of up to three years, departing from the two-year ceiling of the general law, provided the tenant is in a position to clear the debt and has resumed paying the full current rent before the hearing date (art. 24, V). The general law behind this mechanism allows the judge to defer or spread payments over a maximum of two years, taking into account the debtor’s situation and the creditor’s needs: « 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 » (art. 1343-5 of the Civil Code). During delays granted under article 24, the effects of the termination clause are suspended; the suspension ends at the first missed payment, and if the tenant clears the debt within the time and terms set by the judge, the clause is deemed never to have operated, whereas otherwise it recovers its full effect, with current rent remaining payable throughout (art. 24, VII). For the landlord, this means the hearing is won or lost on evidence: an up-to-date ledger, proof that current rent is still unpaid, and any sign that the tenant cannot realistically clear the arrears.
Two Court of Cassation rulings frame the parties’ room for manoeuvre around those delays. First, no time limit is imposed on the tenant for asking the judge for payment delays and suspension of the clause: a court of appeal that declared such a request inadmissible for coming after the two-month period following the payment order was quashed, the Court holding that no deadline restricts the tenant’s application (Cass. 3rd civ., 16 Feb. 2011, no. 10-14.945). A landlord should therefore never assume the file is safe because the tenant stayed silent for months; the request for time can arrive at the hearing itself. Second, timing cuts both ways: where the termination clause had already been acquired, a later erasure of the rental debt through overindebtedness proceedings (surendettement) changes nothing, the Court deeming the argument based on that erasure inoperative (Cass. 2nd civ., 18 Feb. 2016, no. 14-17.782). The statute now organises the interaction in detail: the judge invites the parties to disclose any overindebtedness proceedings, aligns payment delays with approved plans or imposed measures, and suspends the clause for two years after a personal recovery without liquidation, with the clause reviving if the tenant defaults again (art. 24, V, VI and VIII). Practically, a landlord who discovers an overindebtedness file should adjust expectations: the lease may survive, but the repayment framework becomes court-supervised.
One last judicial power deserves mention because it directly affects a foreign owner’s rental yield calculations. The judge may verify of the court’s own motion every component of the rental debt and compliance with the landlord’s basic obligations, including the duty to deliver decent housing, and the judgment ordering eviction must inform the parties of the recourse to the mediation commission for the enforceable right to housing (commission de médiation Dalo) (art. 24, V and IX). An owner who neglected serious disrepair while demanding full arrears may therefore find the debt itself reduced or delayed; keeping the flat in demonstrably decent condition, with invoices and diagnostics to prove it, protects both the claim and the timetable. Owners navigating this court stage from abroad often work with a Paris real estate practice handling landlord disputes to assemble the ledger, the service chain and the hearing file in the form Paris judges expect.
II. Getting the flat back: enforcement, winter truce and Paris practice
A. From judgment to the door: the second six weeks, the truce and the judge’s delays
A judgment recording termination and ordering eviction does not authorise anyone to remove the tenant the next morning. Enforcement requires a court decision or an enforceable mediated settlement, followed by service of a commandement de quitter (order to vacate), as article L. 411-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings provides (art. L. 411-1). That order must contain, on pain of nullity, the enforceable title under which eviction is pursued, the court where delays and disputes can be raised, the date from which the premises must be freed, and the warning that forced eviction may follow; where the eviction concerns an inhabited home, it must additionally reproduce articles L. 412-1 to L. 412-6 (art. R. 411-1; art. R. 412-1). From the order to vacate, the court officer also notifies the State representative so that the prevention commission is informed and the tenant is told about mediation for the enforceable right to housing (art. L. 412-5).
The tenant then benefits from a protected two-month period: where eviction concerns a home inhabited by the evicted person, it may take place only after a two-month period following the order to vacate, as article L. 412-1 states: « elle ne peut avoir lieu qu’à l’expiration d’un délai de deux mois qui suit le commandement » (art. L. 412-1). That judge-made safety net has two extensions the landlord must calendar. Where eviction would have exceptionally harsh consequences, for example because of the time of year or the weather, the judge may extend the two-month period by up to three months (art. L. 412-2). Separately, the enforcement judge may grant renewable delays to occupants of inhabited or professional premises whose court-ordered eviction cannot be paired with rehousing under normal conditions; those delays run from one month to one year and are set by weighing each side’s good or bad faith, age, health, family and financial situation, the steps taken toward rehousing and even the weather (art. L. 412-3; art. L. 412-4).
Over all of this sits the trêve hivernale (winter truce): notwithstanding any final eviction decision and despite the expiry of granted delays, all unexecuted eviction measures are suspended from 1 November each year until 31 March of the following year, unless the occupants are rehoused in conditions preserving the unity and needs of the family: « 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 » (art. L. 412-6). The truce does not cancel the debt, the termination or the occupation indemnity; it only freezes physical removal, and the clock resumes on 1 April. For a foreign landlord, the arithmetic is unforgiving: a judgment obtained in September, followed by a two-month order to vacate, lands squarely in the truce, pushing actual recovery to spring. Conversely, a judgment obtained in April or May can lead to recovery before autumn if every prior step was served without delay. The calendar is therefore part of the strategy, and starting the payment order in spring rather than September can save six months.
Forced removal itself requires the assistance of the police (concours de la force publique), requested through the prefecture after the two-month period expires outside the truce; if the tenant still refuses to leave, only the court officer with that authorisation may proceed, and any self-help (changing locks, removing doors, cutting utilities) exposes the landlord to criminal liability and damages. Landlords sometimes ask whether they can at least stop paying charges or recover the flat piecemeal; the answer remains no, and patience at this stage protects the occupation indemnity the judgment awarded. Throughout enforcement, the tenant may still apply to the enforcement judge for the delays described above, so the landlord’s officer should report each development promptly and keep the file ready for a last-minute hearing.
B. The foreign landlord’s Paris file: what to prepare, what it costs in time, and the traps
Paris adds no separate statute to this procedure, but it concentrates every practical difficulty a non-resident owner faces: the case goes before the protection-litigation judge of the Paris judicial court, the prevention commission and the housing solidarity fund operate at Paris scale with heavy caseloads, and hearings expect a complete, French-language file even when the owner lives in London, New York or Dubai. The winning reflex is to build the file as the Paris judge will read it: the lease and its renewals, the rent ledger month by month distinguishing rent, charges and payments received, every reminder sent, the payment order with its six mentions, proof of service on the guarantor within fifteen days where there is one, the Ccapex signalement receipts, the Caf or MSA reporting receipts, and the insurance or Visale declarations with their dates (art. 24, I and III). Documents in English should be translated; bank statements showing non-payment are more persuasive than any narrative; and a power of attorney allowing a representative or counsel to act avoids adjournments when the owner cannot fly in.
Time, not legal fees, is the main cost to budget. Count a minimum of six weeks for the payment order, at least six weeks between the summons and the hearing given the mandatory notification to the State representative, several weeks for the judgment, then two months for the order to vacate, plus any grace periods, enforcement-judge delays or winter truce on top (art. 24, I and III; art. L. 412-1; art. L. 412-6). A straightforward Paris file served in spring typically runs nine to fourteen months from first arrears to recovery; a file hitting the truce, a three-year repayment schedule or an overindebtedness alignment runs far longer, but the lease survives with a court-ordered schedule and the rent keeps flowing. The occupation indemnity fixed by the judgment, generally aligned with the former rent plus charges, continues to accrue until actual departure, which is why keeping the debt calculation current until the last day matters for the final settlement.
Five traps catch foreign owners specifically. First, terminating the lease by letter or email has no legal effect; only the court records the clause or orders termination, and a premature reletting to a new tenant creates a second unlawful eviction on top of the first. Second, accepting partial payments without a written, time-bound schedule can be read as an agreement that undermines the termination: any concession should be written, capped in time, and expressly state that the clause and the proceedings continue. Third, underestimating the guarantor: the fifteen-day service rule and the thirty-day Visale declaration window are short, and missing them converts a solvent guarantee into an empty promise (art. 24, I). Fourth, buying a tenanted flat mid-procedure without checking existing payment orders and summons: the buyer inherits the timetable, including its defects, so the pre-completion file review should cover eviction proceedings as carefully as diagnostics. Fifth, ignoring the tax side: recovered arrears and occupation indemnities remain taxable rental income, and non-resident owners should report them under the applicable regime rather than discovering them at filing time; the details depend on each owner’s situation and fall outside this litigation guide.
Two final Paris notes. Owners of furnished tourist accommodation sometimes assume the protective procedure does not apply to their short-stay tenant; where the occupant’s situation falls under the residential lease statutes, courts apply the same safeguards, and the separate question of an overstaying short-stay guest follows its own eviction track already covered on this site. And where the tenant’s company holds the lease or the owner holds through a company, the two-month Ccapex waiting period for corporate landlords and the diagnostic chain apply in full, so company-held Paris portfolios should systematise Ccapex reporting rather than treating it as optional (art. 24, II). A landlord who treats each deadline as a hard gate, documents good faith at every step, and aligns the calendar with the truce will find the French procedure slow but predictable; one who improvises will find it slow and fatal. For complex files, an early review by a Paris counsel for foreign property owners before serving the payment order is the cheapest decision in the whole procedure.
Conclusion
Evicting a non-paying tenant in France is a three-act procedure with no shortcuts: a payment order that must carry six exact mentions and wait six weeks; a court stage where the judge checks good faith, verifies the debt and may grant up to three years of scheduled payments; and an enforcement stage with a two-month order to vacate, possible judicial delays and a winter truce from November to March. Each deadline is set by statute, each formal defect can restart the clock, and from 1 January 2027 earlier reporting thresholds will pull landlords into the prevention system sooner. The foreign owner who serves a flawless payment order in spring, reports to every body on time, documents good faith, and refuses all self-help will recover the flat or a court-backed repayment schedule; the one who cuts corners will pay for a second procedure. Start early, write everything down, and let the timetable work for you rather than against you.