You bought a flat in Paris or the inner suburbs as an investment, found a tenant, and for a while the rent arrived every month. Then the payments stopped. One month becomes three, your emails go unanswered, and you start wondering what a British owner can actually do inside the French legal system after Brexit. The short answer is reassuring: your rights as a landlord are exactly the same as those of a French owner. No statute gives you fewer remedies because you hold a British passport, and no court will treat your lease differently because the rent used to cross the Channel. The longer answer is more demanding. France protects sitting tenants with one of the most formalistic eviction procedures in Europe. Every step runs through a court officer, every notice must contain specific compulsory warnings, and a single missing sentence can get your whole case thrown out. This guide walks you through the procedure in the order you will actually meet it: the formal demand for payment, the people you must notify, the court hearing, the grace periods the judge can grant, the winter truce, and the physical eviction. It explains each French term the first time it appears, quotes the exact legal texts you will rely on, and shows you where landlords most often lose cases they should have won.

I. My Tenant Has Stopped Paying the Rent — How Do I Start the Termination Procedure?

A. The six-week commandement de payer: what it must contain and why mistakes destroy your case

The foundation of the whole procedure is a document called the commandement de payer, a formal demand for payment served by a commissaire de justice. The commissaire de justice is a sworn court officer, formerly called the huissier de justice, who alone can serve the procedural acts that move an eviction forward. A recorded-delivery letter from you, however firmly worded, is not a commandement de payer and starts no legal time limit. If you live in London and manage the flat from there, instruct a commissaire de justice practising where the property sits, or ask your managing agent to do so under a written authority. The cost of service is modest. The cost of skipping it is the loss of your case.

The reason this document matters so much is that almost every residential lease in France must contain a termination clause, known as the clause résolutoire, and that clause can only operate through the commandement. The statute provides: « Tout contrat de bail d’habitation contient une 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. Cette clause ne produit effet que six semaines après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux. » Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance. Read that time limit carefully. Many English-language guides still say the tenant has two months to pay after the demand. That was the old law. Since the reform of 2018, the period is six weeks, and a commissaire de justice working from an outdated template can still cost you months if the commandement has to be re-served.

The same article lists what the demand must contain, on pain of nullity, meaning the court must treat a defective demand as if it never existed. It must state: « La mention que le locataire dispose d’un délai de six semaines pour payer sa dette » (Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance) and carry: « L’avertissement qu’à défaut de paiement ou d’avoir sollicité des délais de paiement, le locataire s’expose à une procédure judiciaire de résiliation de son bail et d’expulsion » (Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance). It must also reproduce: « La mention de la possibilité pour le locataire de saisir, à tout moment, la juridiction compétente aux fins de demander un délai de grâce sur le fondement de l’article 1343-5 du code civil. » (Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance). Each of these sentences must actually appear in the act. The general law of termination clauses points the same way: « La clause résolutoire précise les engagements dont l’inexécution entraînera la résolution du contrat. La résolution est subordonnée à une mise en demeure infructueuse, s’il n’a pas été convenu que celle-ci résulterait du seul fait de l’inexécution. La mise en demeure ne produit effet que si elle mentionne expressément la clause résolutoire. » Source: Civil Code, article 1225, on Légifrance. In practice, ask your commissaire de justice to send you a copy of every commandement before it is served and check the three warnings yourself. If the clause résolutoire is not expressly mentioned, the demand produces no effect.

Two further points catch British landlords by surprise. First, if someone stood guarantor for the tenant, a person called the caution, the demand must be served on that guarantor within fifteen days of service on the tenant: « le commandement de payer est signifié à la caution dans un délai de quinze jours à compter de sa signification au locataire. A défaut, la caution ne peut être tenue au paiement des pénalités ou des intérêts de retard. » (Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance). Miss that fortnight and the guarantor escapes the penalties and late interest, even if the rest of your case succeeds. Second, once arrears have run uninterrupted for two months, or the debt reaches twice the monthly rent without charges, the commissaire de justice must report the demand to the local prevention body, the CCAPEX, the commission de coordination des actions de prévention des expulsions locatives, the commission that coordinates action to prevent evictions. This report is automatic and works in your favour: it creates the official record that you acted early and lets the social services contact the tenant before positions harden.

One warning belongs here, because it shapes everything that follows. The tenant can apply to the court for extra time to pay at any point, even very late in the proceedings. The Court of Cassation, the Cour de cassation, France’s highest civil court, has held: « 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 ; » (Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 16 February 2011, appeal No. 10-14.945: full decision on courdecassation.fr). The same decision recalls the old wording of the rule, that the clause « ne produit effet que deux mois après un commandement de payer demeuré infructueux », which has since become six weeks, but the procedural lesson is unchanged: you cannot count on the tenant running out of time to ask for mercy. Build your file from day one as if a judge will read it with sympathy for the tenant, because one will.

While the six weeks run, resist every temptation to take matters into your own hands. Changing the locks, removing the front door, cutting off electricity or water, or moving the tenant’s belongings to the pavement exposes you to criminal liability for trespass and unlawful entry, and it will poison your civil case. Keep paying the building charges, keep a clean rent ledger, called a décompte locatif, showing every sum due and every euro received, and keep copies of every reminder you sent. If you hold rent-guarantee insurance, called garantie des loyers impayés, notify the insurer within the time limit printed in your policy, often within days of the first missed payment. Late notification is the most common reason insurers refuse to pay.

B. The guarantor, the préfet and the prevention commission: who you must notify and when

If the six weeks expire without full payment, the lease is eligible for termination, but you still cannot go to court the next morning. French procedure forces you to warn the public authorities first, so that eviction remains the last resort. The summons that asks the court to record the termination, called the assignation aux fins de constat de la résiliation, must be notified to the préfet, the representative of the State in the département, the French administrative district, at least six weeks before the hearing. The préfet then refers the tenant to the social support services for a financial and social assessment, known as the diagnostic social et financier. Fail to notify the préfet in time and your summons is inadmissible, meaning the court will declare it void without even looking at the merits. The leading case makes the point bluntly. The Court of Cassation quashed a decision that had accepted an earlier notification as sufficient, holding: « 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 ; » (Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 18 June 2014, appeal No. 13-15.049: full decision on courdecassation.fr). The named commission has since been replaced in this role by the CCAPEX and préfet route described above, but the principle the case states has only grown stronger: every single termination action needs its own prior notification, and pointing to an earlier file from a previous dispute will not save you.

The guarantor needs attention at this stage too. Serving the commandement on the caution within fifteen days preserves your claim to penalties and interest against that person, but recovering the main debt from the guarantor still requires suing them properly, usually in the same proceedings. If the guarantee was given by a company or a bank, check whether the guarantee deed caps the amount or the duration. Many British parents who guarantee a student’s Paris studio are surprised to learn that their commitment is enforceable in France under French formalities, not under English notions of fairness, and equally many landlords discover too late that the guarantee expired after one year.

Time limits cut both ways, so calendar them from the start. Claims for back rent are personal actions for money, and the Civil Code provides: « 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. » Source: Civil Code, article 2224, on Légifrance. In plain terms, each missed monthly rent has its own five-year clock. Landlords who let arrears drift for years while hoping the tenant will catch up can find the oldest months time-barred. Sue within the period, and each new missed month starts its own clock. Keep the ledger month by month so your lawyer can show the court exactly which sums are still recoverable.

A short note on geography, since most British-owned rental flats sit in Paris and the inner ring. In Paris the préfet to notify is the préfet de police de Paris, and the case goes to the tribunal judiciaire de Paris, the Paris local court. Waiting times for a hearing there are counted in months, not weeks, so the six-week notification to the préfet should be sent the moment your lawyer drafts the summons, not the week before the target hearing date. If your flat is in the Petite Couronne, the three inner-ring départements around Paris, the same logic applies to the tribunal judiciaire of that département. Your commissaire de justice must in any event practise within the jurisdiction where service happens, which is another reason to use a local officer rather than trying to run the procedure from London.

Finally, remember that the British side of your life does not pause while the French case runs. Rents from a French flat are taxable in France first, and the France-United Kingdom double tax treaty then decides how the United Kingdom treats the same income. Our companion guide explains the treaty credit, the social charges and the declaration forms in detail (see our guide for British residents declaring United Kingdom rental income in France: British Resident in France with UK Rental Income). On the United Kingdom side, residents must also declare foreign rental income to HM Revenue and Customs under the foreign income rules (see Tax on foreign income on gov.uk). Keep the tax file and the eviction file separate in your mind: the tenant’s arrears do not suspend your duty to declare the rents due, and the tax office will not wait for the court.

II. From the Court Hearing to the Eviction — What the Judge Can Order and What Can Still Stop You

A. At the hearing: back rent, termination and the tenant’s last-minute defences

The hearing takes place before the tribunal judiciaire where the flat is located. Your lawyer will ask for three things: a finding that the termination clause has operated, an order that the tenant pay the arrears with interest, and an order to leave, backed by a monthly occupation payment, called the indemnité d’occupation, until the tenant actually goes. The tenant will often ask for the opposite: time to pay and suspension of the termination clause. Expect the judge to take both sides seriously. The statute arms the judge with a broad power of mercy: « 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. » And the same article adds: « La décision du juge suspend les procédures d’exécution qui auraient été engagées par le créancier. » Source: Civil Code, article 1343-5, on Légifrance. A two-year repayment schedule is therefore always on the table where the tenant shows an ability to pay going forward. If the tenant resumes paying the current rent in full before the hearing and sticks to the schedule the judge sets, the statute provides: « Si le locataire se libère de sa dette locative dans le délai et selon les modalités fixés par le juge, la clause de résiliation de plein droit est réputée ne pas avoir joué. » (Source: article 24 of Act No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, on Légifrance). Only if the tenant defaults again does the clause revive with full effect.

The tenant’s strongest substantive defence has nothing to do with sympathy and everything to do with your own conduct. Under French law a party may refuse to perform where the other side seriously fails first: « Une partie peut refuser d’exécuter son obligation, alors même que celle-ci est exigible, si l’autre n’exécute pas la sienne et si cette inexécution est suffisamment grave. » Source: Civil Code, article 1219, on Légifrance. This is the exception d’inexécution, the defence of non-performance. Tenants invoke it where the flat is unfit, the heating has been dead for months, or the landlord never carried out promised compliance works, and argue that withholding rent was a lawful answer to the landlord’s own breach. The landlord’s underlying duties are strict: « Le bailleur est obligé, par la nature du contrat, et sans qu’il soit besoin d’aucune stipulation particulière : 1° De délivrer au preneur la chose louée et, s’il s’agit de son habitation principale, un logement décent. » and « 2° D’entretenir cette chose en état de servir à l’usage pour lequel elle a été louée ». Source: Civil Code, article 1719, on Légifrance. The Court of Cassation confirmed the danger for landlords very recently, quashing an appeal decision that had enforced a termination clause without examining whether the tenant had stopped paying precisely because the landlord had failed to carry out agreed compliance works on the premises (Court of Cassation, Third Civil Chamber, 5 March 2026, appeal No. 24-15.820: full decision on courdecassation.fr). That case concerned commercial premises, but the principle it applies is general. The practical lesson for a British landlord is direct: keep the flat in repair, answer complaints in writing, keep the invoices for every intervention, and never give the tenant a genuine repair grievance in the months when rent stops. A boiler you refused to fix can cost you the eviction.

Two more defences appear regularly. The tenant may file with the over-indebtedness commission, the commission de surendettement, which can suspend the enforceability of the rental debt while it examines the file. You will be invited to comment, so respond with a clear statement of the debt and the payment history. Or the tenant may simply show that the debt is far smaller than you claim, for example because housing benefit, called aide personnalisée au logement, was paid directly and misallocated, or because charges were never properly reconciled. This is why the monthly décompte matters: a judge faced with a confused account will grant generous delays, while a judge shown a clean ledger and a tenant who never engaged will terminate. If you are unsure how the tenant’s mirror-image rights work, our tenant-side guide shows exactly what advice tenants receive in these cases (see British Tenant Renting in France: Deposit, Repairs and Eviction Defence). Reading it will tell you what your opponent is preparing.

One technical distinction is worth making because British owners often let furnished. The six-week article 24 procedure described above governs unfurnished homes, the bail d’habitation vide. Furnished lets, the location meublée, follow the general law of termination clauses, where the demand must still expressly mention the clause to have effect, under article 1225 quoted above, but the special six-week and préfet-notification machinery works differently. If your flat is let furnished, ask your lawyer to confirm which regime each step follows before anything is served. Serving an unfurnished-lease commandement on a furnished tenant, or the reverse, is exactly the kind of error that gets cases declared void.

B. After the judgment: the two-month wait, the winter truce and getting your flat back

Winning the judgment is not the same as recovering the flat. The court orders the tenant to leave, but the tenant gets a minimum period to go voluntarily. Once the commissaire de justice serves the order to leave, called the commandement de quitter les lieux, the statute provides: « 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 ». Source: Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, article L. 412-1, on Légifrance. During those two months the tenant can ask the enforcement judge, the juge de l’exécution, for more time: « Le juge peut accorder des délais renouvelables aux occupants de lieux habités ou de locaux à usage professionnel, dont l’expulsion a été ordonnée judiciairement, chaque fois que le relogement des intéressés ne peut avoir lieu dans des conditions normales. » Source: Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, article L. 412-3, on Légifrance. Those grace periods run from one month to one year: « La durée des délais prévus à l’article L. 412-3 ne peut, en aucun cas, être inférieure à un mois ni supérieure à un an. » Source: Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, article L. 412-4, on Légifrance. The judge weighs the good or bad faith of the occupant, the ages, health and family situations on both sides, the efforts the tenant has made to find new housing, and the time needed for rehousing. A tenant who pays the occupation indemnity and shows genuine search efforts will usually get several months. A tenant who pays nothing and ignores every letter will get the minimum.

Then comes the calendar trap that shocks foreign owners every year: the winter truce, called the trêve hivernale. The statute orders: « Nonobstant toute décision d’expulsion passée en force de chose jugée et malgré l’expiration des délais accordés en vertu de l’article L. 412-3, 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, à moins que le relogement des intéressés soit assuré dans des conditions suffisantes respectant l’unité et les besoins de la famille. » Source: Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, article L. 412-6, on Légifrance. In plain English, no physical eviction of a dwelling between 1 November and 31 March unless the occupants are rehoused. The truce does not cancel the debt and does not cancel the judgment. Interest and the occupation indemnity keep running. But the removal itself waits for April. Factor this into every decision: a judgment obtained in September may be enforced in weeks, while the same judgment obtained in late October can mean five more months of waiting. Starting early in the year is not just good practice, it is money.

When the day finally comes, only the commissaire de justice can carry out the removal, with the tenant’s furniture inventoried and placed under the proper procedure, and with police assistance where the préfet has granted it, a step called the concours de la force publique. If the tenant has vanished, a separate procedure for recovery of abandoned dwellings applies, with its own notices and inventory, and you must not simply re-let and throw the remaining belongings away. The official tenant-facing procedure is described step by step by the public service (see Unpaid rent and tenant eviction on service-public.fr). Reading the same page the tenant reads keeps you one step ahead and reminds you of each notice the tenant will receive.

After recovery, two files remain open. First, the money: the judgment for arrears can be enforced against wages and bank accounts through the commissaire de justice, and against the guarantor within the limits of the guarantee, always inside the five-year limitation recalled above. Second, the flat: have the checkout inventory, the état des lieux de sortie, drawn up promptly, quantify any damage beyond normal wear, and offset lawfully against the security deposit, the dépôt de garantie, with reasons and receipts. Our rental-income guide covers how to report the recovered sums and the unpaid months on the French return (see our rental income guide: British Resident with UK Rental Income). Close the tax loop the same year you close the court file.

Conclusion

Put the whole timeline end to end and the logic of the French system becomes clear. Act at the first missed payment with a polite but written reminder, and mandate a commissaire de justice as soon as a second month goes unpaid. Let the six-week commandement run with all its compulsory warnings, make sure the guarantor is served within fifteen days, and let the automatic report to the prevention commission create your paper trail. Notify the préfet at least six weeks before the hearing, sue for the arrears before any month turns five years old, and arrive at the tribunal judiciaire with a clean ledger, proof of a well-maintained flat, and a realistic view of the repayment schedule the judge can impose. After judgment, expect the two-month order to leave, possible grace periods of one month to one year, and the winter truce from November to March. None of this turns on Brexit: British landlords use the same courts, the same officers and the same articles as everyone else. What decides these cases is never nationality. It is preparation, formal exactness, and speed. Start the formal procedure while the debt is small, keep every notice letter-perfect, and keep the flat in a condition no tenant can complain about, and the system that looks so protective of tenants will deliver your termination, your money order and, in the end, your flat.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Our office offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm for British landlords facing unpaid rent in France. Call 06 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. We assist landlords across Paris and Île-de-France with formal demands, hearings and eviction enforcement.