You own a flat in France, you live in Britain or you have settled in France since Brexit, and you want the keys back. Perhaps you plan to sell the property, perhaps you want to move into it yourself, perhaps you want to house your daughter who has just taken a job in Paris. Your tenant, protected by one of the most tenant-friendly statutes in Europe, refuses to leave. This article explains, step by step, how a British landlord lawfully ends a French residential tenancy, what a valid termination notice must contain, and how the courts handle a tenant who stays put. In France the landlord is called the bailleur<\/i> and the termination notice is called a cong\u00e9<\/i>, and almost every rule that matters sits in one statute: Law No 89-462 of 6 July 1989, which governs the relationship between landlord and tenant, and in the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings, which governs evictions. The same rules apply whether you hold a British passport, live in London or in Lyon, and whether you bought the flat before or after the United Kingdom left the European Union. What changes with distance is practical, not legal: every deadline runs from proof that the tenant actually received your notice, every formal defect can annul the whole procedure, and a tenant who challenges your notice has a clear and accessible path to a judge. Read this guide before you send anything, because a defective notice served today can cost you a full year.<\/p>\n
The stakes are concrete. A notice served late restarts the clock until the next expiry of the lease. A notice that forgets the price, the name of the person moving in, or the compulsory information leaflet can be declared void, which means the lease continues as if nothing had been sent. A notice given for a false reason can expose you to a criminal fine and to damages claimed by the tenant in the criminal proceedings themselves. And even a perfectly valid notice does not authorise you to change the locks: only a court order, followed by a formal order to vacate served by an enforcement officer, allows an eviction, and the winter truce suspends most removals from 1 November to 31 March. The good news is that the procedure is predictable once you know it. This guide follows it in order: first, serving a valid notice to sell or to take the property back; then, obtaining the tenant’s departure through the courts when the tenant refuses to go.<\/p>\n
French law starts from a simple proposition that surprises many British owners. The statute provides: “Lorsque le bailleur donne cong\u00e9 \u00e0 son locataire, ce cong\u00e9 doit \u00eatre justifi\u00e9 soit par sa d\u00e9cision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement, soit par un motif l\u00e9gitime et s\u00e9rieux, notamment l’inex\u00e9cution par le locataire de l’une des obligations lui incombant.” In other words, when you give notice, you must justify it either by your decision to take the property back or to sell it, or by a legitimate and serious reason, such as the tenant breaking one of the obligations of the tenancy. You cannot end a tenancy simply because you feel like it, and you cannot end it early: a landlord’s notice can only take effect at the expiry date of the lease, with six months’ warning. The same article states: “Le d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9avis applicable au cong\u00e9 est de six mois lorsqu’il \u00e9mane du bailleur.” That six-month period is the minimum shield that protects the tenant. Serve one day late and the notice rolls over to the next lease expiry, which for an unfurnished letting can mean waiting years. The full current text of these rules is published on the official statute site at Article 15 of Law No 89-462 of 6 July 1989<\/a>, and everything that follows in this first part comes from that article as interpreted by the Court of Cassation.<\/p>\n Form matters as much as substance. The notice must be delivered by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, served by a commissaire de justice<\/i>, the enforcement officer formerly called the huissier de justice<\/i>, or handed over in person against a signed receipt. The statute is explicit: “Le cong\u00e9 doit \u00eatre notifi\u00e9 par lettre recommand\u00e9e avec demande d’avis de r\u00e9ception, signifi\u00e9 par acte d’un commissaire de justice ou remis en main propre contre r\u00e9c\u00e9piss\u00e9 ou \u00e9margement.” (statutory notice formalities<\/a>) For a British owner living in the United Kingdom, the safest route is service through a French commissaire de justice<\/i> practising near the property, because the six-month clock runs from the day the tenant actually receives the letter. The English-language guidance of the French administration warns that if the letter is not delivered to an absent tenant and comes back to you, the notice period cannot start to run, and the same applies if the tenant never collects the letter held at the post office. An ordinary email is never valid service, even if the tenant replies to it. An electronic registered letter is accepted only where the tenant, being a private individual, has previously agreed to that method. Keep every proof of sending and receipt: in court, the date on the acknowledgement slip decides everything. The practical detail is set out in the administration’s English pages on notice given by the landlord<\/a>, which walk through the same formalities in English.<\/p>\n A sale notice does two jobs at once: it ends the tenancy at the expiry of the lease, and it offers the property to the tenant. Because of that double function, the law punishes vagueness with nullity. The statute states: “Lorsqu’il est fond\u00e9 sur la d\u00e9cision de vendre le logement, le cong\u00e9 doit, \u00e0 peine de nullit\u00e9, indiquer le prix et les conditions de la vente projet\u00e9e.” (sale-notice price rule<\/a>) Your notice must therefore state the asking price and the proposed terms of the sale, precisely, in the notice itself. A letter that says you may sell, or that gives a price to be confirmed, is not a sale notice. It continues: “Le cong\u00e9 vaut offre de vente au profit du locataire : l’offre est valable pendant les deux premiers mois du d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9avis.” (sale offer timing rule<\/a>) The notice counts as an offer of sale to the tenant, and that offer stays open during the first two months of the notice period. During those two months your tenant can decide to buy the flat on the stated terms, and you cannot sell to anyone else on those terms while the tenant’s option runs.<\/p>\n If the tenant accepts, the timetable is fixed by law and the lease is extended to accommodate the sale. The tenant who accepts has two months from sending the reply to complete the sale, extended to four months where the reply states that the purchase will be financed by a loan, with completion conditional on obtaining that loan. The tenancy is prolonged until the sale deadline expires. If the sale has not been completed by then, the acceptance becomes void by operation of law and, crucially, the tenant loses any right to remain in the property. That is the balance the statute strikes: a genuine chance to buy, then a clean exit. A second protection follows the tenant even after the notice period. Where you later decide to sell on terms or at a price more favourable to the buyer, the notaire<\/i>, the French public officer who authenticates property sales, must notify those new terms to the tenant unless you have already done so, on pain of nullity of the sale. That notification counts as a fresh offer, valid for one month from receipt, with the same two-month, or four-month with a loan, completion timetable. And the statute adds a formality that traps careless landlords: the terms of those five paragraphs must be reproduced, on pain of nullity, in every notification. Copy them word for word and do not paraphrase. The official text of these sale-notice paragraphs sits in paragraph II of Article 15<\/a>, and the matching English explanation appears on the administration’s page about selling a let dwelling<\/a>.<\/p>\n Three further points complete the picture for a sale notice. First, a compulsory information leaflet about your obligations and the tenant’s remedies and compensation rights must be attached to the notice. The administration publishes the model, and omitting it gives the tenant an additional ground of challenge, so treat the leaflet as part of the notice itself rather than an optional extra. Second, special timing rules apply where you bought the property while it was already let, a common pattern for British investors who acquire tenanted Paris flats. Where the current lease ends more than three years after your purchase, you may give notice to sell at the end of the current lease. Where it ends less than three years after purchase, you must wait for the end of the first tacit renewal or first renewed term before the sale notice can take effect. Check the date on your acte de vente<\/i>, the authentic deed signed before the notaire<\/i>, before you count your six months. Third, remember that a sale notice is an offer with a price on it: if the tenant accepts and completes, you have sold at that price. Never state a price you would regret, and never serve a sale notice as a pressure tactic while quietly planning to re-let at a higher rent. A notice used as a threat is exactly what the criminal sanction discussed below was written to punish.<\/p>\n Owners sometimes ask whether a sale notice can be combined with a rent increase or served alongside other demands. Keep the notice clean and single-purpose. The statute allows the notice to be justified by your decision to sell, by your decision to take the property back, or by a legitimate and serious reason, and mixing motives in one letter hands the tenant arguments. If the tenant is also in arrears, pursue the arrears separately through a demand to pay, and let the sale notice speak only of the sale. Precision at this stage pays for itself later: the judge who hears a challenge will read your letter first, and a short, exact, fully documented notice is far harder to attack than a long, emotional one. If your situation is the mirror image, a tenant facing a notice from a British owner, the companion guide for British tenants renting in France<\/a> explains the same procedure from the tenant’s side, including deposits, notices to leave and eviction defences.<\/p>\n A take-back notice, called a cong\u00e9 pour reprise<\/i>, lets you recover the property so that it becomes someone’s main home. The circle of permitted beneficiaries is closed and narrow. The statute requires that the notice state, on pain of nullity, the alleged reason and, in a take-back, the surname and address of the beneficiary and the nature of the link between you and that person, who can only be yourself, your spouse, the partner with whom you are bound by a civil solidarity pact registered at the date of the notice, your publicly known partner of at least one year at the date of the notice, your parents or children, or those of your spouse, partner or publicly known partner. The exact wording is: “A peine de nullit\u00e9, le cong\u00e9 donn\u00e9 par le bailleur doit indiquer le motif all\u00e9gu\u00e9 et, en cas de reprise, les nom et adresse du b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaire de la reprise ainsi que la nature du lien existant entre le bailleur et le b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaire de la reprise qui ne peut \u00eatre que le bailleur, son conjoint, le partenaire auquel il est li\u00e9 par un pacte civil de solidarit\u00e9 enregistr\u00e9 \u00e0 la date du cong\u00e9, son concubin notoire depuis au moins un an \u00e0 la date du cong\u00e9, ses ascendants, ses descendants ou ceux de son conjoint, de son partenaire ou de son concubin notoire.” (permitted beneficiaries rule<\/a>) Name the person, give the address, state the relationship, and make sure the relationship falls inside that list. A notice to house a friend, a business partner or a distant cousin is void. A notice served to house your adult son in his first Paris job, or to move back yourself after years in London, fits the list, provided you say so clearly in the letter.<\/p>\n Naming a permitted beneficiary is necessary but not sufficient. The statute adds: “Lorsqu’il donne cong\u00e9 \u00e0 son locataire pour reprendre le logement, le bailleur justifie du caract\u00e8re r\u00e9el et s\u00e9rieux de sa d\u00e9cision de reprise.” When you give notice to take the property back, you must show that your decision is genuine and serious. This is where most disputes are won and lost. A genuine plan means concrete evidence: electoral registration at the new address, renovation invoices for the flat, utility and internet contracts taken out in your name, a letter from an employer posting you to France, school enrolments for children. The Court of Cassation, the supreme court for civil matters, has clarified how this test works in practice. In a judgment of 12 October 2023, appeal No 22-18.580, landlords who had served a take-back notice to return to their home region after bereavement saw their notice upheld where the file showed registration on the electoral roll, major works invoiced after the tenants left, and water, gas, electricity, internet and tele-assistance contracts, together with notice given to the tax authorities. The Court approved the appeal judges’ statement of principle in these terms: “La cour d’appel a \u00e9nonc\u00e9, \u00e0 bon droit, que la prescription de la justification dans le cong\u00e9 du caract\u00e8re r\u00e9el et s\u00e9rieux de la d\u00e9cision de reprise, \u00e0 titre de condition de forme, n’est pas \u00e9dict\u00e9e \u00e0 peine de nullit\u00e9.” In plain terms, the notice itself does not have to prove the genuineness of your plan on pain of nullity; what matters is that you can prove it when the judge examines the case. Read the full reasoning at Cass. 3rd civil chamber, 12 October 2023, No 22-18.580<\/a>. Build your evidence file from the day you decide to take the property back, not from the day the tenant challenges you.<\/p>\n The same Court has shown the other edge of the blade. Where the designated beneficiary dies before the notice takes effect, the notice falls. On 16 April 2026, in appeal No 24-13.191, a landlady had served a take-back notice to live in the flat herself, then died before the notice expired, and her son sought to enforce the same notice for himself. The Court quashed the enforcement and held: “Il s’en d\u00e9duit que les conditions de la reprise du logement devant \u00eatre appr\u00e9ci\u00e9es en la personne de son b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaire, le d\u00e9c\u00e8s de celui-ci, survenu avant la date d’expiration du d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9avis, prive d’effet le cong\u00e9 aux fins de reprise.” Because the conditions of the take-back must be assessed in the person of the beneficiary, the death of that person before the notice period expires deprives the take-back notice of effect. The heir could not simply inherit the notice; he would have to serve his own, designating himself. See Cass. 3rd civil chamber, 16 April 2026, No 24-13.191<\/a>. For British families this matters twice over: first, check that the person named in the notice is alive, willing and genuinely moving in at the date the notice expires; second, if the owner dies mid-procedure, the heirs must restart the notice in their own names rather than continuing the deceased’s file. Probate in England does not transfer a French take-back notice.<\/p>\n Two shields protect certain tenants even against a genuine plan. The first covers older tenants of modest means. The statute provides that a landlord cannot refuse renewal by giving notice to any tenant over sixty-five whose annual income sits below the ceiling used for subsidised housing, without offering that tenant a replacement home suited to needs and means within a defined geographical area, and the same applies where the tenant supports a person over sixty-five living in the flat where the household’s combined income sits below the ceiling. The age is assessed at the expiry of the lease and income at the date of the notice. The Court of Cassation settled how that income is measured on 24 October 2024, in appeal No 23-18.067: “les ressources \u00e0 prendre en compte pour calculer ce montant sont celles per\u00e7ues par le locataire au titre des douze mois qui pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent la d\u00e9livrance du cong\u00e9.” The income to count is what the tenant received over the twelve months before the notice was served, a rolling twelve months, not the last tax year. The Court recalled the rule in these terms: “le bailleur ne peut s’opposer au renouvellement du contrat de location \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de tout locataire \u00e2g\u00e9 de plus de soixante-cinq ans et dont les ressources annuelles sont inf\u00e9rieures au plafond de ressources en vigueur pour l’attribution des logements locatifs conventionn\u00e9s fix\u00e9 par arr\u00eat\u00e9 du ministre charg\u00e9 du logement”. In that situation the landlord cannot refuse renewal without offering the tenant substitute housing suited to needs and means. Read Cass. 3rd civil chamber, 24 October 2024, No 23-18.067<\/a>. There is one escape for the landlord: the shield does not apply where the landlord is a private individual over sixty-five or whose own annual income sits below the same ceiling. The second shield, added for beneficiaries of a specific disability-related allowance, works the same way. Before serving any notice, ask your tenant’s age only through lawful means, check your own position, and if the shield may apply, prepare a genuine rehousing offer rather than hoping the tenant will not notice. The governing paragraphs sit in paragraphs III and IV of Article 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, never serve a notice you do not mean. The statute punishes pretence directly: “Le fait pour un bailleur de d\u00e9livrer un cong\u00e9 justifi\u00e9 frauduleusement par sa d\u00e9cision de reprendre ou de vendre le logement est puni d’une amende p\u00e9nale dont le montant ne peut \u00eatre sup\u00e9rieur \u00e0 6 000 \u20ac pour une personne physique et \u00e0 30 000 \u20ac pour une personne morale.” A landlord who serves a notice fraudulently justified by a supposed decision to take back or sell faces a criminal fine of up to 6,000 euros for an individual and 30,000 euros for a company. It adds: “Le locataire est recevable dans sa constitution de partie civile et la demande de r\u00e9paration de son pr\u00e9judice.” The tenant can join the criminal case as a civil party and claim compensation for the loss suffered. The classic fraud is the take-back followed by a quick re-letting at a higher rent, or the sale notice followed by no genuine marketing. Tenants talk to neighbours, keep photographs of new occupants, and ask the notaire<\/i> whether the property was ever really marketed. If your plans change honestly after a genuine notice, document the change. If the notice was a tactic from the start, the fine and the damages will cost far more than the rent increase you hoped for. The sanction sits in paragraph V of Article 15 of the same Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n A valid notice ends the tenant’s right to remain, but it never authorises you to recover the flat by force. French law reserves eviction to the courts, and the procedure that follows a refusal to leave has its own mandatory stages, its own minimum delays, and its own seasonal pause. Understanding this second phase before you serve the notice helps you set realistic expectations: even an unanswerable file takes months to enforce, and a winter expiry can push the physical removal into spring. The rules below come from the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings, the statute that organises how court orders are carried out, and from the administration’s English guidance on challenging a landlord’s notice, which usefully shows the tenant’s remedies so you can anticipate them.<\/p>\n Changing the locks, cutting off utilities or moving the tenant’s belongings to the pavement is unlawful and can expose you to criminal liability as well as damages. The statute states the principle bluntly: “Sauf disposition sp\u00e9ciale, l’expulsion d’un immeuble ou d’un lieu habit\u00e9 ne peut \u00eatre poursuivie qu’en vertu d’une d\u00e9cision de justice ou d’un proc\u00e8s-verbal de conciliation ex\u00e9cutoire et apr\u00e8s signification d’un commandement d’avoir \u00e0 lib\u00e9rer les locaux.” Save for special provisions, eviction from a building or an inhabited place can only be pursued under a court decision or an enforceable mediated settlement, and after service of a formal order to vacate the premises. See Article L411-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings<\/a>. In practice this means that when the notice expires and the tenant remains, you must apply to the court for an order confirming the validity of the notice, ordering eviction, and fixing an indemnit\u00e9 d’occupation<\/i>, a monthly occupancy payment that the unlawful occupier owes until actual departure. The competent court is the one where the property is located, so for a Paris flat that means the Paris court, and the tenant can defend the case by attacking the notice itself, which is why the precision demanded in Part I matters so much.<\/p>\n Once you hold the court order, the enforcement officer serves a commandement de quitter les lieux<\/i>, a formal command to leave, and a minimum two-month clock starts. The statute provides: “Si l’expulsion porte sur un lieu habit\u00e9 par la personne expuls\u00e9e ou par tout occupant de son chef, elle ne peut avoir lieu qu’\u00e0 l’expiration d’un d\u00e9lai de deux mois qui suit le commandement” (two-month rule after the formal command<\/a>), subject to further statutory provisions on delays and suspension. Where the eviction concerns a place lived in by the person expelled or by anyone occupying through that person, it cannot happen before two months have passed since the formal command, subject to the further statutory provisions on delays and suspension. Read Article L412-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings<\/a>. Those two months are a floor, not a ceiling. The judge who orders the eviction can reduce or remove the delay, particularly where the judge finds that the occupier acted in bad faith. The statute states: “Le d\u00e9lai pr\u00e9vu au premier alin\u00e9a du pr\u00e9sent article ne s’applique pas lorsque le juge qui ordonne l’expulsion constate la mauvaise foi de la personne expuls\u00e9e ou que les personnes dont l’expulsion a \u00e9t\u00e9 ordonn\u00e9e sont entr\u00e9es dans les locaux \u00e0 l’aide de man\u0153uvres, de menaces, de voies de fait ou de contrainte.” A tenant who simply exercises a genuine defence is not in bad faith; bad faith means conduct such as manufacturing a defence, refusing any payment while able to pay, or sabotaging inspections. Conversely, where eviction would cause exceptionally harsh consequences, for instance because of the season or the weather, the judge can extend the two-month period by up to three months: “Lorsque l’expulsion aurait pour la personne concern\u00e9e des cons\u00e9quences d’une exceptionnelle duret\u00e9, notamment du fait de la p\u00e9riode de l’ann\u00e9e consid\u00e9r\u00e9e ou des circonstances atmosph\u00e9riques, le d\u00e9lai pr\u00e9vu \u00e0 l’article L. 412-1 peut \u00eatre prorog\u00e9 par le juge pour une dur\u00e9e n’exc\u00e9dant pas trois mois.” See Article L412-2 of the same Code<\/a>. Ask the court for the occupancy payment to be set at a realistic level from the start, because it runs until the day the tenant actually hands back the keys.<\/p>\n Then comes the seasonal rule every British owner must diary. The winter truce, the tr\u00eave hivernale<\/i>, suspends most evictions each year: “il est sursis \u00e0 toute mesure d’expulsion non ex\u00e9cut\u00e9e \u00e0 la date du 1er novembre de chaque ann\u00e9e jusqu’au 31 mars de l’ann\u00e9e suivante, \u00e0 moins que le relogement des int\u00e9ress\u00e9s soit assur\u00e9 dans des conditions suffisantes respectant l’unit\u00e9 et les besoins de la famille.” All unexecuted eviction measures are stayed from 1 November each year until 31 March of the following year, unless the people concerned are rehoused in adequate conditions respecting the unity and needs of the family. See Article L412-6 of the same Code<\/a>. In concrete terms, if your court order becomes enforceable in October and the tenant has nowhere to go, the physical removal waits until April. The truce does not cancel the debt, does not revive the lease, and does not stop the occupancy payment from accruing; it only pauses the forced removal. Narrow exceptions exist for squatters who entered by force or trickery and for occupiers who are properly rehoused, but an ordinary tenant holding over after a notice benefits from the stay. Plan your calendar around it: a notice expiring on 30 September can still mean a spring departure once court time and the truce are factored in, and any promise to a buyer or to a family member of vacant possession by Christmas should be drafted with that risk in mind. For flats in Paris and the inner suburbs, where court diaries are crowded and winter arrives with the 1 November deadline, starting the court application the moment the tenant signals refusal, rather than waiting for the notice to expire, is often the difference between enforcing in autumn and waiting until spring.<\/p>\n Two money questions usually travel with the eviction: unpaid rent that built up before or after the notice, and the tenant’s counter-attack on the validity of the notice. Handle them as separate tracks. Arrears are a contractual debt and can be claimed in the same court application as the eviction, with interest and with the occupancy payment running from the expiry of the notice until departure. Keep a clean ledger: rents due under the lease until its expiry, then the court-fixed occupancy payment afterwards. Tenants sometimes stop paying once they receive a notice, calculating that departure is inevitable; the debt nevertheless accumulates and can be enforced against wages, bank accounts or, for tenants who later leave France, through European enforcement instruments. Conversely, never accept a partial payment without marking it as made under reservation where the characterisation of the sums matters to your file, and never agree orally to let the tenant stay on for a few months without writing down that the occupation is precarious and compensated. An informal tolerance, kindly meant, can be recharacterised in court as evidence that your take-back plan was not serious after all.<\/p>\nA. The cong\u00e9 to sell (cong\u00e9 pour vendre): price, sale terms and the tenant’s right to buy<\/h3>\n
B. The cong\u00e9 to take back (cong\u00e9 pour reprendre): who may move in and the real-and-serious test<\/h3>\n
II. When the tenant stays: the winter truce, the court order and getting the flat back<\/h2>\n
A. No self-help eviction: the court order, the formal order to leave and the winter truce (tr\u00eave hivernale)<\/h3>\n
B. Recovering arrears and answering the tenant’s challenge: conciliation, proof and damages<\/h3>\n