You bought a flat in Lyon as an investment, or you moved back to Britain and kept your house in the Dordogne as a rental. The rent arrives every month — until it does not. One missed payment becomes three, your messages go unanswered, and you start wondering what an owner in your position is actually allowed to do. France answers that question with a procedure, not a reflex: no locks changed, no belongings on the pavement, no self-help of any kind. Everything passes through a commissaire de justice — the enforcement officer formerly called the huissier de justice — a judge, and a series of deadlines that run in weeks and months, not days. Since Brexit this machinery applies to you exactly as it applies to a French landlord: British owners letting homes in France play by French rules, in French courts, in the French language. This guide follows the order in which a British landlord meets the system. Part I deals with unpaid rent: the formal demand that starts the clock, the termination clause it triggers, and the payment delays and winter truce that can still slow you down. Part II deals with ending the lease and recovering the flat: the six-month notice to quit, and the court order and supervised enforcement that finally return the keys. Every French term is explained at first use, and every decisive proposition is tied to the official text or court decision it comes from. This guide covers unfurnished residential leases, the standard French rental; furnished lets follow a separate shorter regime outside its scope.

I. Your tenant has stopped paying: the recovery ladder before you recover the flat

A. The formal demand and the termination clause: the six-week letter that decides everything

French residential leases all contain the same loaded mechanism. As Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 — the loi du 6 juillet 1989, the statute governing residential tenancies — puts it: “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.” In plain terms, every lease contains a termination clause (clause résolutoire) for unpaid rent, charges or deposit, but that clause only takes effect six weeks after a formal demand to pay — the commandement de payer — has gone unanswered. See Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance. Nothing happens without that document, and everything afterwards depends on its validity.

The demand is served by a commissaire de justice at your request, and the statute lists what it must contain on pain of nullity. It must state that the tenant has six weeks to pay: “La mention que le locataire dispose d’un délai de six semaines pour payer sa dette”. It must give the monthly amount of rent and charges, a breakdown of the debt, and a warning that failure to pay or to ask for time to pay exposes the tenant to court proceedings to terminate the lease and evict them. It must also tell the tenant they can apply to their departmental housing solidarity fund (fonds de solidarité pour le logement) for financial help, and that they can ask a court at any time for a grace period under Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code. Miss one of these mentions and the whole demand can be annulled — which is why landlords who post an informal reminder letter, however firmly worded, have achieved nothing in law. If a guarantor (caution) guarantees the lease, the demand must be served on the guarantor within fifteen days of service on the tenant, failing which the guarantor cannot be held to penalties or late interest. All of these compulsory mentions come from Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance.

Courts examine these demands closely, from both sides. The Court of Cassation has approved judges who verify that the tenant was genuinely able to understand exactly what was demanded of them — in one case it upheld findings that the addressee had been put in a position to grasp the orders sent to them, holding that “celui-ci avait pu prendre l’exacte mesure des injonctions qui lui avaient été adressées”. See Court of Cassation, 3rd civil chamber, 25 March 2021, No. 19-20.458. The lesson for a British landlord is symmetrical: a sloppy demand collapses your case, while a tenant who claims confusion against a precise, itemised demand will struggle to be heard. Have the figures reconciled in euros, charges separated from rent, and payments allocated before the officer drafts the act.

Two parallel alarms go off once the demand is served. Where the tenant has been continuously in arrears for two months, or the rental debt equals twice the monthly rent excluding charges, demands issued for an individual landlord — or a family property company (société civile formed exclusively between relatives) — are reported by the enforcement officer to the departmental commission for the prevention of rental evictions, the commission de coordination des actions de prévention des expulsions locatives (CCAPEX): the statute provides that such demands “sont signalés par le commissaire de justice à la commission de coordination des actions de prévention des expulsions locatives”. The State representative in the department then orders a social and financial assessment (diagnostic social et financier) of the household. This is not your enemy; it is the system triaging the file, and a landlord who cooperates with the assessment moves faster than one who ignores it. The reporting duty itself is set by Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance. If you let through a company that is not a family property vehicle, different preliminary steps apply: such corporate landlords cannot issue proceedings to record termination of the lease until two months after referral to the same commission, on pain of inadmissibility.

Before any court summons (assignation) seeking termination can be issued, one more notification is compulsory. The summons must be notified by the enforcement officer to the State representative in the department at least six weeks before the hearing — “au moins six semaines avant l’audience” — so that a further social and financial assessment can be carried out and sent to the judge before the hearing, with the parties’ written observations attached where applicable. Miss this step and your claim is inadmissible. British landlords managing from the United Kingdom should absorb what this means in practice: every stage requires a local enforcement officer, documents in French, and a French address for service. Appointing a bilingual managing agent (gestionnaire) or a lawyer before the first demand is served is not a luxury; it is how you avoid losing months to defective paperwork. The companion guide to letting your French property within the rules, paying French tax and registering correctly covers the setup that should have preceded this dispute.

B. Time to pay, the judge’s grace periods and the winter truce: what can still slow you down

Even with a valid demand and a terminated lease, the judge hearing your case holds two powers that routinely surprise British owners accustomed to the swifter English possession procedure. The first is the general power to grant grace periods (délais de grâce). Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code provides: “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.” The judge may therefore defer or spread payment of the sums due over up to two years, weighing the tenant’s situation against your needs as creditor. See Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code on Légifrance. During the period fixed by the judge, enforcement proceedings are suspended, and late-interest uplifts and penalties are not incurred. Any lease term to the contrary is deemed unwritten.

In rental disputes specifically, the judge can go further. Article 24(V) of the 1989 Act states: “Le juge peut, à la demande du locataire, du bailleur ou d’office, à la condition que le locataire soit en situation de régler sa dette locative et qu’il ait repris le versement intégral du loyer courant avant la date de l’audience, accorder des délais de paiement dans la limite de trois années”. Three conditions therefore decide whether your tenant buys up to three years: the tenant must be in a position to clear the rental debt, must have resumed paying the full current rent before the hearing date, and the judge must be persuaded — at a party’s request or on the court’s own motion. See Article 24 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance. For the landlord, the practical consequence is sharp: if the tenant resumes paying the current rent before the hearing and shows a credible repayment capacity, opposing any payment schedule outright usually fails, and the smarter strategy is to negotiate a tight, court-approved schedule whose breach restarts your enforcement. If the tenant has paid nothing for months and offers nothing, ask the judge to record that the statutory conditions are not met.

Where the tenant has entered a consumer over-indebtedness procedure (surendettement), the timetable bends further. If an over-indebtedness case is open and the tenant has resumed paying rent and charges by the hearing date, the judge who records that the termination clause has operated must align the payment periods with the over-indebtedness process: until approval of a recovery plan, the decision imposing measures, a judgment of personal recovery, or closure of the case. In other words, the debt proceedings pause inside the collective debt procedure. Landlords sometimes discover this only at the hearing; a prudent step before suing is therefore to invite the parties to disclose any over-indebtedness proceedings — indeed the statute directs the judge to invite production of everything relating to such a procedure. Ask your lawyer to check this point when the summons is prepared, not when the judge raises it.

The second brake is seasonal and automatic: the winter truce (trêve hivernale). Article L. 412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures provides that “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.” No unexecuted eviction measure may therefore be carried out between 1 November and 31 March unless the occupants are rehoused in conditions that preserve the unity and needs of the family. See Article L. 412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance. The truce suspends enforcement; it does not cancel the debt, terminate the protection, or prevent the judge from ruling during winter. Note the narrow exception: the truce does not protect occupants who entered the premises by acquit of manoeuvres, threats or violence, and the judge can lift or reduce it where premises other than a dwelling were taken by such means.

Beyond winter, the judge who orders eviction can grant renewable stays (délais) whenever the occupants cannot be rehoused in normal conditions: “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.” See Article L. 412-3 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance. These stays last no less than one month and no more than 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.” In fixing them, the judge weighs the good or bad faith of the occupant, the respective situations of owner and occupier — age, health, family and financial circumstances — the steps the occupant has taken to find new housing, and the right to decent independent housing. See Article L. 412-4 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance. A British landlord should read this list as a checklist in reverse: document the tenant’s bad faith (rent unpaid while means exist, refusal of social support, no rehousing applications), file evidence of your own situation (reliance on the rental income, health or age factors on your side), and oppose each renewal with fresh facts. Tenants, for their part, will find the tenant-side view of deposits, notices and defences in the guide to renting in France as a British tenant: lease, deposit and eviction.

II. Ending the lease and recovering the flat: the notice to quit and the eviction order

A. Notice to quit to sell, to repossess or for a serious reason: the six-month letter that must be perfect

Termination for arrears is only one route. You may want the property back to live in it, to house a child studying in France, or to sell it empty. That route runs through the congé — the landlord’s notice to quit — governed by Article 15 of the 1989 Act, and its formal demands catch out foreign owners more than any other document in French rental law. The principle first: “Lorsque le bailleur donne congé à son locataire, ce congé doit être justifié soit par sa décision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement, soit par un motif légitime et sérieux, notamment l’inexécution par le locataire de l’une des obligations lui incombant.” Every notice must therefore rest on one of three pillars: repossession (reprise), sale (vente), or a legitimate and serious ground such as the tenant’s breach. See Article 15 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance.

Form is everything. The notice must state the ground relied on, failing which it is void, and for repossession it must name the beneficiary with address and relationship: “A peine de nullité, le congé donné par le bailleur doit indiquer le motif allégué et, en cas de reprise, les nom et adresse du bénéficiaire de la reprise ainsi que la nature du lien existant entre le bailleur et le bénéficiaire de la reprise”. Only a closed circle can benefit: the landlord, spouse, civil partner (partenaire de PACS), established cohabiting partner of at least one year, ascendants, descendants, or those of the spouse, partner or cohabiting partner. And the landlord must show the decision is genuine: “Lorsqu’il donne congé à son locataire pour reprendre le logement, le bailleur justifie du caractère réel et sérieux de sa décision de reprise.” The notice period running from the landlord is six months: “Le délai de préavis applicable au congé est de six mois lorsqu’il émane du bailleur.” Serve it late and the lease simply continues; the six months must expire on or after the lease term. Each of these formal requirements is stated in Article 15 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance.

The courts test the ground, not the wording alone. The judge may verify of their own motion whether the ground is real and the statutory duties were honoured: “En cas de contestation, le juge peut, même d’office, vérifier la réalité du motif du congé et le respect des obligations prévues au présent article.” See Article 15 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance. Two recent Court of Cassation rulings show how concrete this control is. In the first, the beneficiary of a repossession died before the notice took effect, and the landlord’s heir claimed the notice passed to him. The Court quashed the eviction, holding that “les conditions de la reprise du logement devant être appréciées en la personne de son bénéficiaire, le décès de celui-ci, survenu avant la date d’expiration du délai de préavis, prive d’effet le congé aux fins de reprise” — the conditions of repossession being assessed in the person of the beneficiary, their death before expiry of the notice period deprives the notice of effect. It added, quashing the appeal ruling: “En statuant ainsi, alors qu’elle avait constaté que la bénéficiaire de la reprise désignée dans le congé était décédée avant la date d’effet de ce congé, la cour d’appel a violé le texte susvisé.” See Court of Cassation, 3rd civil chamber, 16 April 2026, No. 24-13.191. For a British family letting through generations, the warning is direct: a notice naming an elderly parent as beneficiary is fragile, and the heir cannot simply inherit the notice.

In the second ruling, a landlord nearing retirement, himself a tenant of his own home, gave notice to repossess one of his flats to cut his housing costs. The tenant argued the move was financially unnecessary. The Court approved the judges who had held that the genuineness of the landlord’s wish to repossess cannot turn on money alone — “la réalité de la volonté du bailleur de reprendre le bien loué ne saurait dépendre uniquement de sa situation financière et patrimoniale” — and who had sovereignly found the intention real and serious as at the date of the notice, given the foreseeable fall in retirement income and the tenant’s own delaying tactics. See Court of Cassation, 3rd civil chamber, 3 July 2025, No. 24-11.504. The date of assessment matters: your situation at the date of the notice is what counts, so build the file then — retirement letters, income projections, proof you actually moved in afterwards. A notice for sale (congé pour vendre) adds its own trap: the sitting tenant has a statutory right of first refusal (droit de préemption), and the notice must reproduce it. Owners who bought an occupied property face extra clocks: where the current lease ends less than three years after acquisition, notice to sell can only be given for the end of the first tacit renewal, and where it ends less than two years after acquisition, a repossession notice takes effect only two years after the acquisition date — “le congé pour reprise donné par le bailleur au terme du contrat de location en cours ne prend effet qu’à l’expiration d’une durée de deux ans à compter de la date d’acquisition.” See Article 15 of the Act of 6 July 1989 on Légifrance. British buyers of tenanted flats in Paris should diary these dates on the day of the acte de vente.

One protection can block even a flawless notice: the elderly tenant. Where the tenant is over sixty-five with modest resources, or has such a person habitually living in the home with combined household resources below the ceiling, the landlord may not give notice without offering rehousing matching the tenant’s needs and means within a defined geographical area. Check your tenant’s age and resources before serving anything; discovering the protection after six months of procedure is an expensive education. Finally, remember that a notice founded on nothing real exposes you to damages: a tenant who proves the ground was a sham — no sale completed, no beneficiary moved in — can sue for compensation and, in some cases, reinstatement of the lease. Never serve a congé pour vendre as a disguised eviction for arrears; use the arrears procedure in Part I, which is built for exactly that.

B. From the court order to the front door: the two-month commandement, enforcement and challenging each step

Assume the judge has recorded termination of the lease, ordered eviction, and fixed an occupation indemnity (indemnité d’occupation) — the monthly sum the former tenant owes until departure, usually set at the former rent level. Many British landlords read the judgment as the end. In France it is the middle. Eviction of an occupied home “ne peut avoir lieu qu’à l’expiration d’un délai de deux mois qui suit le commandement” — it cannot take place until two months after the order to vacate has been served: “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”. See Article L. 412-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance. The judge can reduce or remove this period only in defined cases, notably where rehousing steps failed through the tenant’s fault, or set it aside entirely on a finding of bad faith or forcible entry.

That order to vacate — the commandement d’avoir à libérer les locaux, commonly called the commandement de quitter les lieux — is itself a formal act of the enforcement officer served on the person to be evicted, and it must contain four items on pain of nullity: “Le commandement d’avoir à libérer les locaux prend la forme d’un acte d’huissier de justice signifié à la personne expulsée et contient à peine de nullité : 1° L’indication du titre exécutoire en vertu duquel l’expulsion est poursuivie”. The remaining three are the court before which time limits and disputes over enforcement can be raised, the date from which the premises must be freed, and the warning that forced eviction may follow. See Article R. 411-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance. (The reference to the huissier de justice predates the 2022 merger of that profession into the commissaire de justice; the act and its requirements are unchanged.) It may be served together with the judgment itself, which saves a round of service costs. Check the designation of the court carefully: disputes over enforcement go to the enforcement judge (juge de l’exécution), while requests for extra time go to the judge who ordered the eviction — sending the application to the wrong court wastes the two months you just waited.

If the occupants have still not left when the two months expire — and outside the winter truce, and subject to any judicial stays described in Part I — the enforcement officer cannot simply force the door. Forced eviction requires the assistance of the police (concours de la force publique), requested through the prefect, and the prefect’s decision can itself be challenged before the administrative courts where a refusal looks unlawful. Furniture is inventoried and either removed to storage at the evicted person’s expense or left in place under their custody, with strict formalities. Every irregularity — an incomplete inventory, enforcement during the truce, force used without authorisation — gives rise to liability and can unwind the operation. This is also the stage where arrears recovery runs in parallel: the judgment for the debt can be enforced by attachment of earnings (saisie des rémunérations), bank attachment (saisie-attribution) or, for larger debts, a court-supervised payment plan. An eviction order without a recovery strategy often leaves the landlord with the flat but not the money; instruct on both together.

Each side has remedies at every rung, and Brexit changes none of them — but distance punishes the unprepared. The tenant can appeal the eviction judgment within one month of service, apply for the stays and grace periods of Part I, and contest each enforcement act before the enforcement judge. The landlord can appeal a refusal to record termination, oppose any stay with evidence of bad faith or of their own hardship, and seek the occupation indemnity plus damages for the holdover period. For a British owner living in the United Kingdom, three practical rules decide whether these remedies exist on paper or in reality. First, elect domicile in France — with your agent or lawyer — for service of all acts; chasing deadlines from London through international post loses cases. Second, keep every euro documented in French form: rent ledger (décompte), bank statements showing non-payment, copies of every demand and summons. French judges decide on the file (sur pièces), and an English-language bundle with no translation carries no weight. Third, never interrupt the sequence: demand, State notifications, summons, judgment, order to vacate, authorised enforcement. Skipping one step to save a fee invalidates the next, and the months lost cost more than any officer’s fee.

Conclusion

Recovering a French rental property as a British landlord is a timed sequence, not a single action. Serve a valid six-week demand to pay that contains every statutory mention, notify the State representative six weeks before the hearing, and use the termination clause the lease already contains. Expect the judge to test whether the tenant can pay and has resumed paying, to grant up to three years of scheduled payments where those conditions are met, and to stay enforcement over winter and wherever rehousing cannot happen normally. If you want the property back rather than the arrears, serve a six-month notice grounded on a genuine sale, repossession or serious reason, name the beneficiary correctly, respect the acquisition clocks and the elderly-tenant protection, and make sure the ground is real on the day the notice is served — the Court of Cassation checks. Then enforce the judgment through the two-month order to vacate and authorised assistance, recovering the debt in parallel rather than as an afterthought. At each stage the same discipline applies: French form, French deadlines, French proof. The landlord who instructs locally, documents in euros and never skips a rung gets the flat back with costs covered; the one who improvises from abroad funds the tenant’s delay. Procedure is the substance here — follow it exactly, and the keys come back.