This article is general information, not legal advice. Sales of tenanted property turn on the lease, the notices and the deed in front of you. Take advice before signing or serving anything.
Last Updated: July 2026
English property lawyers have a phrase for it: the lease binds successors in title. France goes further and puts it in one blunt article of the Code civil. Under article 1743, selling a tenanted property does not touch the lease. The tenant simply gets a new landlord, whether the buyer likes it or not. That single rule decides who keeps the deposit, who chases the arrears, who pays for the works the old landlord promised, and why the asking price of an occupied flat sits well below the price of an empty one. It also explains the elaborate ritual called the congé pour vendre, the only clean way to put a tenanted French home on the market empty. Whether you are buying a property with a sitting tenant or selling one, here is how the machinery actually works.
The lease follows the walls
Article 1743 says that the buyer of a leased property cannot expel the tenant: the lease passes with the building, and the tenant may demand performance from the new owner exactly as from the old. The courts apply the rule to every sale, including a licitation, the court-ordered auction that ends an indivision, and beyond sales to any transfer for value, and a fortiori to gifts. The transfer is automatic: the tenant does not need to agree, or even to be told, and cannot object. The sale takes effect against them from the day it is signed, without waiting for any land-registry publication (Cass. 3e civ., 4 May 2000).
From the deed onwards, the buyer is the landlord, on the terms of the existing lease and until its normal expiry (Cass. 3e civ., 18 February 2009). The new owner takes the contract as found: the same rent, the same clauses, the same term. The Cour de cassation has refused to let a new landlord demand a second security deposit from the sitting tenant (Cass. 3e civ., 26 March 2014), and a court order condemning the old landlord to carry out works under his delivery obligation follows the building too, even against a buyer at auction (Cass. 3e civ., 21 February 2019). If the rent is low and the lease is long, that is now the buyer’s problem, which is precisely why occupied property trades at a discount.
The same continuity holds when nobody sells at all. Under article 1742 of the Code civil, the death of either party leaves the lease standing: the landlord’s heirs inherit the tenant along with the walls, and the tenant’s heirs step into the lease. A family that inherits a tenanted French property has therefore acquired a landlord’s obligations, ready made and non-negotiable. What the inheritance does to the ownership side, and who may then sign or renew anything, is another story, one we cover in our guides to French inheritance law and who can actually sign a French lease.
Date certaine: the paperwork that decides whether the buyer is stuck
The statute attaches one condition: the lease must have acquired a date certaine, a legally certain date, before the sale. The point is to protect buyers from leases invented after the deal, signed in a panic and backdated over the kitchen table. A lease has a certain date when it is made by notarial act, or when a private contract meets the Code’s conditions for certainty, registration being the classic route. A notarial deed of sale that recites the existence and essential terms of a private lease signed the same day has been held to give that lease a certain date (Cass. 3e civ., 15 March 2000).
In practice the judges have softened the requirement into something close to a knowledge test. A lease without a certain date is still enforceable against the buyer who knew of its existence at the time of the sale, a solution the Cour de cassation has repeated across three decades (Cass. 3e civ., 20 July 1989; 29 September 1999; 11 February 2004; 7 March 2007). Since the compromis and the diagnostics of a tenanted sale invariably mention the tenant, a buyer will rarely manage to plead ignorance. The lesson runs both ways: sellers should disclose the lease and annex it to the compromis, while buyers should assume every occupant they were told about comes with enforceable paper, and read it before signing rather than after.
The opt-out that works everywhere except where you need it
Article 1743 has a second, less famous paragraph: the transfer rule is not public policy. A lease may stipulate that it will not survive a sale, allowing the seller to deliver the property free of occupation. Before you draft one into every tenancy, there are two limits. First, the opt-out is forbidden precisely where landlords would want it most: rural leases and residential leases under the 1989 law always pass to the buyer, so the tenant of a main home keeps their lease against any buyer, clause or no clause. Second, even where the clause is valid, the evicted tenant has a right to compensation provided for by articles 1744 to 1750 of the Code civil. That right to an indemnity is public policy, and the parties cannot contract it away. Where the clause earns its keep is outside the protected statutes, in the Code civil leases used for second homes and corporate lets we covered in our guide to the bail Code civil: there, a well-drafted clause excluding the transfer changes what you are selling.
What the buyer inherits, and what stays with the seller
The sale splits the lease’s history in two. Everything owed for the period before the deed stays, in principle, between the tenant and the old landlord. Unpaid rent from before the sale remains the seller’s claim, not the buyer’s, unless the receivables were formally assigned with the lease (Cass. 3e civ., 2 October 2002). Repair and compensation obligations the seller had already incurred remain his (Cass. 3e civ., 14 November 2007). And the buyer cannot terminate for the tenant’s old sins: breaches committed before the sale are off limits unless they continue afterwards, with one practical exception the Cour de cassation carved for damage to the premises, which the new owner can invoke at the end of the lease under the tenant’s duty to return the property in good state, without proving the damage postdates the sale (Cass. 3e civ., 21 November 2001).
The deposit deserves its own paragraph, because the rule changed. The classic position was that the tenant could reclaim the security deposit only from the landlord who received it (Cass. 3e civ., 25 February 2004), a recipe for insolvent-seller misery. Since a 2009 reform, article 22 of the 1989 law puts the restitution of the deposit on the new landlord for residential leases, and any contrary arrangement binds only the parties to the sale. So the buyer of a tenanted flat will one day hand back a deposit he never received, and the notaire should make the seller account for it in the completion statement. Two more accessories follow the building automatically: the guarantee (caution) securing the rent now benefits the new owner as an accessory of the lease, and the obligation to deliver decent housing binds each successive landlord.
Selling empty instead: the congé pour vendre
If the property is someone’s main home under the 1989 law, the only clean route to a vacant sale is the congé pour vendre, the notice for sale served for the end of the lease. For an unfurnished letting the notice must reach the tenant at least six months before the term, and it is not merely a notice: it is an offer. During the first two months of the notice period the tenant holds a right of first refusal at the price and conditions stated. Accept, and the tenant has two months to complete, four if a mortgage is involved, with the lease prolonged until completion. Decline, or say nothing, and the tenant’s right to the premises dies at the end of the notice period.
The formalism bites hard, and the case law is a museum of annulled notices. The notice must state the price and conditions of the intended sale; the price may be optimistic but not abusive, or the judge can annul the notice altogether. It must exclude agency fees, since a preempting tenant by definition used no agent (Cass. 3e civ., 8 October 2015, confirmed 28 June 2018). The description must also match the title exactly, because a forgotten cellar or a discrepancy with the deed can sink the whole notice, though no Carrez surface is required. And the notice must reproduce, on pain of nullity, the statutory paragraphs of article 15-II informing the tenant of their rights. There is a second trap after the notice: if the owner then agrees to sell to a third party on better terms, especially a lower price, the tenant gets a subsidiary right of first refusal, notified through the notaire, with one month to accept. Skip that second notification and the eventual sale is exposed.
Furnished lettings run on a lighter regime: the congé pour vendre under article 25-8 needs only three months’ notice and carries no right of first refusal, one of the quiet structural advantages of furnished letting for an owner who values the exit. Block sales of buildings of more than five dwellings and the Parisian sport of ventes à la découpe follow their own reinforced rules, with longer offers and extra documents. If that is your situation, you are in bespoke-advice territory. And a curiosity for collectors: the additional preemption right that communes once enjoyed in subdivision sales was struck down by the Conseil constitutionnel in January 2018.
Bought occupied and planning to serve notice? Join the queue
One more layer protects sitting tenants from a familiar manoeuvre: buying an occupied flat cheap, then serving notice at the first opportunity. Since the ALUR and Macron reforms, a buyer of an occupied main-home letting takes the lease with a waiting room attached. For a notice to sell, if the current lease expires less than three years after the acquisition, the new owner may only give congé for the end of the first renewal or first tacit prolongation of the lease, not for the current term. For a notice to repossess and live in the property, if the lease expires less than two years after the purchase, the notice takes effect only once two years have run from the acquisition. Buyers who priced the property on the assumption of a quick recovery of possession discover the assumption was the most expensive line in their spreadsheet.
A procedural footnote for impatient landlords: the Cour de cassation will not let you sue to validate a notice before it has taken effect. An owner who served a congé pour vendre and immediately asked the court to declare it valid was told he had no present interest in the action until the notice period had run (Cass. 3e civ., 8 February 2006). Serve, wait, then litigate if you must.
What we would check before completion
Buyers of tenanted property: demand the lease itself, with proof of its date, the last état des lieux, a rent statement showing arrears, the deposit amount, and any guarantee documents. Make the notaire account for the deposit in the deed, since you will be the one returning it. Check who signed the lease and with what authority, because a lease signed by someone who could not grant it is a different problem entirely. Our guide to who can actually sign a French lease covers that gate. Confirm the rent actually paid matches the contract, and whether any works orders hang over the building, since court-ordered works follow the walls too. The lease file should also contain the tenant’s insurance certificate, because an uninsured tenant is a termination ground all of its own. Sellers: serve any congé pour vendre with surgical care and diarise the six-month deadline backwards from the lease term, because a notice served late simply rolls the lease onwards. On timing and the compromis mechanics generally, see our guide to the compromis and promesse de vente. If the tenanted flat is a furnished LMNP investment, the sums are in our LMNP guide.
A last word on price, because everything above ends up in it. The discount on occupied property is not folklore: it is the market pricing article 1743. How deep it runs depends on the rent against market rent, the time left to the lease term, the tenant’s payment history, and now the waiting rules for buyers of occupied homes. A buyer should price the tenancy actually being acquired, waiting periods included, rather than the empty flat imagined at the next expiry. A seller should weigh that discount against the cost of the alternative: a congé pour vendre served six months early, drafted to survive judicial inspection, possibly preempted by the tenant, and only available at the term of the lease. Sometimes the discount is the cheaper option, and the point is to choose it deliberately.
FAQ
Can the buyer of a French property evict the sitting tenant?
No. Article 1743 passes the lease with the property. The buyer becomes landlord on the existing terms until the lease expires. For a main-home tenancy under the 1989 law, even a clause in the lease cannot change that.
Who refunds the tenant’s deposit after a sale?
For residential leases, the new landlord, since the 2009 reform of article 22 of the 1989 law, even if the seller never handed the money over. Buyers should have the deposit accounted for at completion.
Does the tenant have a right to buy when the landlord sells?
Only when an unfurnished main-home landlord serves a congé pour vendre: the notice is an offer the tenant can accept within two months. A landlord selling with the tenant in place owes no offer, and furnished tenants have no statutory right of first refusal.
Can the new owner claim rent arrears from before the sale?
No. Pre-sale arrears belong to the seller unless the claims were formally assigned with the lease. The buyer collects rent only from the deed onwards.
I bought an occupied flat. Can I serve notice at the next lease expiry?
Not always. If the lease expires less than three years after your purchase, a notice to sell can only target the end of the first renewal. A notice to live in the property yourself takes effect no earlier than two years after the acquisition when the lease expires within two years of it.
How long before the lease ends must a congé pour vendre be served?
Six months before the term for an unfurnished main home, three months for a furnished one. Served late, the notice is ineffective and the lease renews, so the sale waits for the next term.
