Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified French notaire, avocat, or chartered accountant before acting on anything you read here. The English Investor accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this article.
Last Updated: August 2026
A letter arrives from the préfecture. It is polite, it cites a 1989 statute, and it invites you to attend a hearing about your own rental property on a Friday afternoon in the departmental capital. Nobody has sued you and no court is involved, yet you have been summoned before the commission départementale de conciliation, and if you are a foreign owner this is very probably the first time you have heard of it.
The commission sits in an unfamiliar place in the landscape. It is not a court and it cannot order anyone to pay anything, yet ignoring it carries a real cost, and a document signed in front of it can close off your right to litigate for good. Deposit disputes are its staple diet, which makes it the body most likely to write to an overseas landlord out of the blue.
Here is what it is, what it can and cannot touch, how a session actually unfolds, and the honest answer to the question everybody asks first: does any of it bind you?
What the Commission Actually Is
Article 20 of the loi of 6 July 1989 created a conciliation commission in every French département, and a décret of 19 July 2001 set out how they run. Each one is paritaire, meaning it is composed of landlord representatives and tenant representatives in equal number, typically drawn from bodies like the UNPI on one side and tenant associations such as the CLCV or the CNL on the other. Its secretariat sits inside the local direction départementale de l’emploi, du travail et des solidarités, the DDETS, which is a State service and not part of the court system.
Three practical consequences follow from that structure, beginning with cost. The commission is free, and the official guidance on when to seize it states so plainly. It is territorial, so the competent commission is the one for the département where the property sits, whatever the parties’ own addresses. And because its members are representatives of both camps and not judges, it exists to broker a deal, not to rule on who is right.
What It Can Hear, and What It Cannot
The competence list is narrower than most people expect, and the exclusions catch owners out regularly. The commission handles individual disputes on rent, including the errors and procedural missteps we cover in our guide to raising the rent on a French property, plus the état des lieux or condition report, the deposit, service charges, repairs falling on either side, the property’s décence or fitness standard, and notices to quit. Since the loi ALUR of March 2014 it also covers furnished lettings, which matters given how many foreign-owned properties are let furnished. Tenancies falling outside the 1989 statute altogether are a different matter, and we set out where those boundaries lie in our piece on the code civil lease for a second home.
| The commission can hear | The commission cannot hear |
|---|---|
| Deposit disputes and retentions | Unpaid rent |
| Entry and exit condition reports | Claims for damages or compensation |
| Service charges and their justification | Disputes with third parties such as neighbours or the syndic |
| Repairs falling on landlord or tenant | Commercial and hotel leases |
| Rent level, revision and indexation errors | Formal findings of unfitness or insalubrity |
| Notices to quit given by either side | Bail mobilité tenancies |
Two exclusions on that list deserve particular emphasis. Unpaid rent is outside the commission’s reach entirely, so a landlord chasing arrears gains nothing here and should follow the route we set out in our article on the six-week unpaid-rent timeline. And the bail mobilité, the short furnished tenancy for people in training or on assignment, is expressly carved out by the official guidance, so neither party to one can use the commission at all. On décence, it is worth reading alongside the ruling we covered on a notice to quit served on a flat the landlord knew was unfit, since the two questions travel together more often than owners expect.
Optional or Compulsory? Both, Depending
For a small group of rent disputes, seizing the commission is a mandatory step before any judge will hear you, and skipping it makes the claim inadmissible. That group covers the complément de loyer or rent supplement, which must be challenged within three months of signature, rent fixing on re-letting under the rent-control rules, and the increase or decrease of a rent said to be under or over-valued at renewal, where the commission must be seized in the four months before the lease expires.
For everything else, including every deposit dispute, the official guidance marks the step as optional. Owners tend to stop reading there, which is a mistake, because a second rule arrives from an entirely different direction. A décret of 11 May 2023 restored article 750-1 of the civil procedure code for cases brought from October 2023, and it requires a prior attempt at conciliation, mediation or a participatory procedure for money claims not exceeding €5,000, on pain of an inadmissibility the judge can raise of its own motion.
Put the two rules together and a trap appears that catches people out. A modest deposit is one or two months’ rent, so most deposit claims sit under €5,000 and need an amicable attempt before a court will hear them. But article 750-1 names its three acceptable routes exhaustively, and the conciliation commission is none of the three. French courts treat that list as limitative, and have refused to count even a formal demand served by a commissaire de justice. Somebody who goes to the commission, gets nowhere, and then issues proceedings can still be met with an inadmissibility.
Where litigation is a realistic prospect, the safe course is to treat the two obligations as separate boxes. A conciliateur de justice is free, attached to the local court and squarely inside article 750-1, and nothing stops you using one alongside the commission. Where the commission’s involvement is itself compulsory the position is arguably different, since the article dispenses parties in cases where an administrative authority must attempt conciliation, but that argument is untested and is not one to rely on if you can simply tick both boxes.
The threshold cuts both ways, and on a larger property it can vanish altogether. An unfurnished deposit is capped at one month’s rent and a furnished one at two, so €5,000 is only a real ceiling where the rent is modest. A prime Paris or Riviera flat let furnished at €3,000 a month already carries a €6,000 deposit, and above the line the obligation simply falls away. What matters is the total pleaded rather than the deposit alone, so the statutory 10 percent monthly penalty and the costs claimed can lift a borderline case over it, and appeal courts have restored claims dismissed below where the sums came to just over €5,000. Courts have also held that the requirement does not bite where the claim asks for something beyond the payment of money, such as a finding on the lease itself.
How a File Is Opened
Either side can start it, and the requirements are light. The application must give the names and addresses of both parties and the object of the dispute, and it must come with the documents that let the commission understand the file. Many départements have now moved the process onto the national démarches simplifiées platform, so what used to be a recorded-delivery letter is increasingly an online form with uploads. You can find the commission covering your property through the official directory of conciliation commissions.
For a deposit dispute the expected bundle is predictable and worth assembling before you need it: the lease, the entry and exit condition reports plus the inventory for a furnished property, the recent formal claim sent to the other side with proof of posting, any deduction statement, quotes and invoices exchanged, photographs where they form part of the condition report, and the correspondence trail. A landlord who cannot produce invoices for the sums withheld is in a weak position in front of this particular audience, a point the courts have made repeatedly, including in the Cour de cassation ruling on deposits and occupation indemnities we analysed, because article 22 of the same 1989 statute allows retention only for sums that are duly justified.
That article is worth knowing in full, since it generates most of the cases the commission sees. Service charges are a frequent companion complaint, and the recoverable household waste element is one we unpack separately in our TEOM and REOM guide. The deposit itself must be returned within one month of the keys coming back where the exit report matches the entry report, and within two months where it does not. Miss the deadline and the balance owed increases by 10 percent of the monthly rent excluding charges for every month of delay begun. The clock, not the argument, is what usually decides these disputes.
The Letter That Lands: an Anonymised Convocation
Below is a real convocation issued by a commission secretariat to the responding party in a deposit dispute, anonymised throughout. Everything identifying has been removed and replaced with a bracketed placeholder. It is reproduced because the wording is standard across the country, and because the operative warnings sit in the paragraphs most people skim.
Four things in that letter repay a second reading. The commission tells you the other side’s file has already been sent to you, so you are not walking in blind. It sets a date for lodging your own evidence, while allowing you to bring documents on the day. It permits representation by somebody holding a mandate with full conciliation powers, which is how an owner living abroad attends without flying in. And it states the consequence of not turning up, which we come to shortly.
One small practical warning from the specimen above. These letters are produced from templates, and the internal dates are not always coherent. If the deadline for filing your evidence appears to fall before the date of the letter itself, do not assume you are out of time. Telephone the secretariat and have the date confirmed.
The Session Itself
Convocations go out at least fifteen days before the session, by simple letter or email. Sessions are typically held once or twice a month in the departmental capital, and both parties are expected to attend in person, because conciliation is only realistically possible with both sides in the room. You may bring somebody to assist you, or send a representative holding an express mandate to conciliate, and that mandate matters: a representative who cannot agree anything on your behalf wastes everyone’s afternoon.
The format is straightforward enough that the preparation matters more than the performance. The secretariat reads a summary of the dispute, each side sets out its position and its proposal, and the members then try to move the two towards a settlement. Evidence is not taken on oath, there is no cross-examination, and a lawyer is optional. Owners used to common-law procedure sometimes arrive over-prepared for a trial and under-prepared for a negotiation, which is the wrong way round.
A word on timing before you diary anything. The texts give the commission two months from the referral to deliver its document or opinion, and the secretariat two months to prepare the file. Treat that as the legislative intention and not a promise. Sessions are scheduled around a monthly calendar and holiday closures, and the gap between lodging a claim and sitting in the room can run considerably longer than the statutory period suggests.
The Three Possible Endings
Full agreement. The commission draws up a document de conciliation recording the deal, signed in the session by both parties. This is the outcome with the sharpest legal teeth, and in a direction that surprises people. Once signed, the official guidance is explicit that the parties can no longer take the point to a judge. If a tenant agrees to give up part of the deposit, that concession is final and no later claim for it will be heard. Sign nothing you have not thought through, because there is no cooling-off period afterwards.
Partial agreement. The commission records what has been settled and what has not, again in a signed document. The settled parts are closed, while the rest stays live and can go to court.
No agreement. The commission issues an avis, an opinion setting out the dispute, each party’s position and, where it chooses, the commission’s own view. It is sent to both sides by ordinary post. Either party can then go to court and file the opinion with the claim.
So Is Any of It Binding?
This is the question that brings most readers here, and the answer has two halves.
The avis binds nobody at all. The commission has no power to order payment, none to enforce anything, and its opinion carries no authority over the judge who later hears the case. What the opinion carries instead is weight, because it comes from a body composed equally of landlord and tenant representatives who examined the file and heard both sides, so a judge reading it knows it is not one party’s account. If it goes against you, expect your opponent to put it in front of the court.
The signed conciliation document is a different animal. It records an agreement the parties made, and it is enforceable as such. Where one side then fails to honour it, the other applies to the court to compel performance under the conciliation provisions of the civil procedure code, and can rely on the fact that the agreement was reached under the commission’s auspices. So the commission cannot impose an outcome on you, but it can host one that you will not escape.
The Cost of Not Turning Up
Since attendance cannot be compelled, some owners conclude that the cheapest response to a convocation is silence. The specimen letter explains why that reasoning fails. Where a party refuses to attend or is absent without excuse, the commission hands a written opinion to the party who did attend, and that party may lodge it with the court registry.
Read that slowly, because the consequence is uncomfortable. The only version of events the commission will have heard is your opponent’s. The opinion produced will reflect that, and it can travel to the judge with your absence recorded in it. You will have converted a free afternoon of negotiation into a documented, one-sided account of your own dispute.
Where you genuinely cannot attend, the answer is the mandate rather than silence. A properly empowered representative preserves your position, and a written excuse with evidence may earn a fresh convocation instead of an adverse opinion. If you run French property from another country, this belongs on the list of things somebody local must be able to do for you, alongside the points in our guide to managing a French property remotely.
What Happens When Nobody Agrees
The commission closes its file and the dispute moves to the tribunal judiciaire of the place where the property sits, before the juge des contentieux de la protection, the judge with jurisdiction over housing. For a deposit claim that judge can order restitution together with the statutory 10 percent monthly penalty, and can rule on whether the deductions were justified in the first place. It is the same judge who handles possession, as our guide to evicting a French tenant explains.
Two features of this stage are worth planning for. Court proceedings put costs and time into a dispute that conciliation would have handled for nothing, which is why a settlement slightly worse than your best case is often the better commercial outcome. And the commission’s opinion goes into the file, so the position you took in the room is the position the judge will see you having taken.
A Practical Playbook
- Check the commission is competent. Deposits, condition reports, charges, repairs and notices are in scope. Rent arrears, damages claims and bail mobilité tenancies are not, and a misdirected application only loses time.
- Answer the convocation. Confirm attendance in writing, and diary the date for filing your documents. Silence is the single most expensive option available.
- Build the bundle the commission expects. Lease, both condition reports, the inventory for a furnished let, the formal claim with proof of posting, the deduction statement, and invoices or quotes for every euro withheld.
- If you cannot attend, send a mandate. The representative needs express power to conciliate and needs to know the file. A messenger without authority is worse than useful.
- Decide your walk-away number before the session. You will be asked for a proposal. Knowing the figure you will accept, and the figure you will not, is the whole preparation.
- Treat the signature as final. A conciliation document closes the point for good. Read it in the room, and do not sign to end an awkward afternoon.
- Get free help before you go. The agences départementales d’information sur le logement, the ADIL network, gives free legal information on housing to owners and tenants alike, and landlord and tenant federations advise their own members.
The Bottom Line
The commission is one of the more sensible pieces of French housing procedure. It is free, it is reasonably quick by the standards of the alternative, and it is staffed by people who understand leases without needing the basics explained. For an owner it is an opportunity to settle a deposit argument for the cost of an afternoon, and for a tenant it is a route to a hearing without a lawyer or a filing fee.
The mistakes are equally predictable. Owners who ignore the letter lose control of the narrative. Parties sign documents in the room without registering that they have just extinguished a right to sue. Both sides arrive without invoices and wonder why the commission cannot help them. None of that is difficult to avoid once you know what the letter in your hand actually does.
FAQ: the Commission Départementale de Conciliation
Does the commission’s decision bind me?
Its opinion does not. The commission cannot order payment and its avis leaves a later judge free to decide otherwise, though it can be filed with the court and carries persuasive weight. A conciliation document you sign is different and is binding on you.
Does it cost anything?
No. The procedure is free for both parties and no lawyer is required, although each side may be assisted or represented by somebody of their choosing.
Do I have to go through the commission before suing?
For most disputes, including deposits, seizing the commission is optional under the housing statute. Separately, article 750-1 of the civil procedure code requires a prior amicable attempt for money claims of €5,000 or less, but it lists only three routes: a conciliateur de justice, mediation, or a participatory procedure. The commission is none of them, so do not assume a referral to it discharges that obligation.
What if the other party does not turn up?
Where a party refuses to attend or is absent without excuse, the commission gives a written opinion to the party who did attend, who may lodge it with the court registry. An absence with a legitimate and evidenced reason may instead produce a final fresh convocation.
Can I be represented if I live abroad?
Yes. You can send a representative holding an express written mandate giving full power to conciliate on your behalf. The representative must know the file, since they may be asked to agree terms in the session.
How long does the whole thing take?
The texts allow two months from the referral for the commission to deliver its document or opinion. In practice sessions run on a monthly calendar and the interval between lodging a file and attending a session is frequently longer than that.
Can the commission deal with unpaid rent?
No. Rent arrears are outside its competence, as are damages claims and disputes with third parties such as neighbours or a syndic. Those go to the court.
