This article is general information for foreign owners of French property, not legal advice. Housing-decency disputes turn heavily on the facts and on expert evidence, and the rules change frequently. Consult a French avocat specialising in landlord-tenant law before acting on anything you read here. The English Investor accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this article.
Last Updated: June 2026
Picture the manoeuvre, because a lot of landlords have tried it. You let a flat that is, let’s be honest, a bit small or a bit tired. A few years in, the tenant has it declared indecent (legally substandard) and the rent gets cut. So you reach for what looks like the elegant exit: you serve a conge (a notice to quit at the end of the lease term) saying you need the place empty in order to carry out the very works that would bring it up to standard. Vacant possession, a quick renovation, a fresh tenant at a proper rent. Clean, logical, and – as of 4 June 2026 – firmly unlawful, if you knew the flat fell short when you signed the lease. On that day the Cour de cassation (France’s highest civil court) told a Paris landlord exactly that, overturned the eviction it had won, and handed every tenant in a sub-standard let a new shield.
This is the second of two decency rulings the same chamber handed down on the same day, and the pair work together like a pincer. We took apart the first – the ruling that lets a tenant force the repair works for as long as the defect lasts while capping their damages at three years – in a separate piece. This one closes the other escape route: if you cannot wait the problem out, can you at least clear the tenant out to deal with it? The Court’s answer, where you knew about the defect all along, is no.
A quick word on terms, because the distinction is the whole case. A conge is the landlord ending the tenancy at its natural expiry by giving advance notice – a non-renewal – and the law allows it only for limited reasons: to sell the property, to move back in, or for another “legitimate and serious” motive such as the tenant’s own breaches. That is different from cancelling the lease mid-term for a breach, and different again from the physical eviction that follows only if a tenant stays on after a valid notice has expired. This case is about that first step: whether “I need to do the works” was a good enough reason for the conge.
The facts: an 8.84 m² studio and a notice that backfired
The case is almost a parable. On 25 November 2016, a societe civile immobiliere (an SCI, the property-holding company many French landlords use) let a studio to a tenant. By a definitive judgment of 7 January 2019, the flat was held indecent: its main room measured just 8.84 m², below the 9 m² floor that the decency rules require, so it simply could not lawfully serve as a home. That is a shortfall of 0.16 m² – a sliver of a thing, but enough, because the decency threshold is a hard line, not a target.
On 23 May 2019, the landlord served a conge pour motif legitime et serieux (a notice to quit for a “legitimate and serious reason”) to take effect on 24 November 2019, resting it on a plan to carry out works – knocking down the partition between the bathroom and the bedroom to restore an 11 m² room – plus some rent arrears. When the tenant did not leave, the landlord went to court in August 2020 to validate the notice, evict him, and recover the arrears, and in November 2023 the Paris cour d’appel agreed.
The appeal court’s reasoning is worth pausing on, because it is exactly what the top court would later reject. French law (article 1719 of the Code civil) stops a landlord from evicting a tenant out of an unfit home by having the lease cancelled. But that bar, the appeal court said, is about cancelling a lease part-way through; here the landlord had simply served a conge – an end-of-term notice not to renew the lease, a different mechanism – so the bar did not apply. On that view, needing the flat empty to carry out the upgrade works counted as a legitimate and serious reason to take it back. The tenant, who was on full legal aid, took the case to the Cour de cassation, and won.
What the Court held: you cannot evict to cure a defect you knew about
The Third Civil Chamber stated the principle in a single sentence that landlords should commit to memory: the carrying out of works by the landlord to remedy the indecency of a dwelling of which he was aware when the lease was concluded does not amount to a legitimate and serious reason for a conge. Knowing you let a sub-standard home, then trying to recover it on the basis that it is sub-standard, is not a reason the law will accept. The notice was void, the eviction with it.
The reasoning rests on a quartet of texts – article 1719, 1° of the Code civil and articles 6, 15 and 20-1 of the law of 6 July 1989 – and the way the Court fits them together is the real lesson. Article 1719 says a landlord must hand over a decent home, and that where premises let as a dwelling are unfit for that use, the landlord cannot rely on the nullity or the termination of the lease to evict the occupant. The Paris court had tried to slip the conge past that rule by calling it something other than a termination. The Cour de cassation shut the gap: you cannot achieve through a notice to quit what the law forbids you to achieve through cancellation. The general principle of the Code civil applies right alongside the special tenancy statute, not in its shadow.
The lawful route runs through the tenant, not around them
What makes the decision coherent rather than merely tough on landlords is article 20-1 of the 1989 law, which already maps the proper path. Where a let dwelling falls short of the decency standard, the tenant can require the owner to bring it up to scratch without disturbing the existing lease; a judge, asked by either side, fixes the works and the deadline, and can cut the rent or suspend it until the job is done. In other words, French law has always envisaged that an indecent flat gets fixed with the tenant in place, under judicial supervision, not by first showing the tenant the door. The renovation-by-eviction shortcut was never the route the statute had in mind, and now the highest court has said so out loud.
| What the landlord wants to do | Lawful? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Serve a conge to get the flat empty and then do the conformity works | No, if you knew of the defect when you signed | Not a legitimate and serious reason (the 4 June 2026 ruling) |
| Evict the tenant by arguing the flat is unfit to live in | No | Article 1719, 1°: a landlord cannot use the nullity or termination of the lease to evict from unfit premises |
| Carry out the conformity works with the tenant in place | Yes, this is the intended route | Article 20-1: the tenant can require the works; a judge sets their nature and deadline and may adjust the rent |
| End the tenancy for a genuine, independent reason (a real sale or reprise, or the tenant’s own serious breaches) | Possible, on its own merits | A true independent ground stands or falls separately; it just cannot be the known defect in disguise |
The timing point: bad faith is judged at the signing
The hinge of the whole decision is the phrase “of which he was aware when the lease was concluded“. The disqualifying ingredient is the landlord’s knowledge at the moment of signing – consistent with the Code civil’s rule that contracts must be negotiated, formed and performed in good faith, assessed here as at formation. That places the spotlight on what you knew on day one. It also leaves a genuine question at the edges, which the commentators have already flagged: was this landlord truly aware, when the lease was signed in 2016, that the main room was 0.16 m² shy of the legal minimum? The point did not seem to be seriously contested, and a defect that small is easy to miss. But the direction of travel is unmistakable, and for a foreign owner the safe reading is blunt: if a reasonable landlord in your position should have known the flat was sub-standard when it was let, do not expect to evict your way out of fixing it.
Why this matters most for the DPE generation of landlords
If this felt like a niche dispute about one tiny Paris studio, look again through the lens of energy ratings, because that is where it will bite hardest. The decency standard now includes a minimum energy-performance rung, and the calendar is climbing: a G-rated home has been legally indecent in mainland France since 1 January 2025, with F joining in 2028. We set out the full timetable and the exceptions in our guide to the DPE letting ban. Now overlay this ruling. A landlord sitting on a tenanted G-rated flat, who knew the rating when the current lease was signed, cannot serve notice on the tenant in order to vacate, renovate and re-let at a higher rent. The energy works, like any other conformity works, have to be done with the tenant in place. The decision quietly forecloses the most obvious landlord response to the DPE squeeze.
And it pairs with its twin to remove the alternative of doing nothing. As the companion 4 June ruling on forced works and capped damages made clear, a tenant can compel the repairs for as long as the breach lasts and bank three years of damages on a rolling basis. Put the two together and the message to anyone letting a sub-standard French home is stark: you cannot outlast the problem, and you cannot evict your way around it. The only exit is to fix it, properly, with the tenant still living there.
What to take from it if you let French property from abroad
Three practical conclusions for the non-resident landlord, who is exactly the reader most likely to have inherited a tired flat with a tenancy attached.
First, diagnose before you let, not after. The whole case turned on knowledge at signing. A clean, dated etat des lieux and an honest decency and DPE assessment at the start of each tenancy is not box-ticking; it is the difference between a flat you can later manage and one whose defects are now legally yours to fix on the tenant’s timetable. If you are running the place from another country, the practical machinery for this sits in our guide to managing French property remotely.
Second, if a flat is already sub-standard and tenanted, budget for works with the tenant in residence rather than fantasising about vacant possession. The lawful path is article 20-1, possibly with a reduced rent while the works run. It is slower and less convenient than an empty flat, but it is the only route that survives contact with the courts.
Third, keep your grounds clean and separate. A conge for a genuine, independent reason – a real sale, a real reprise to live there yourself, or the tenant’s own serious breaches – is a different animal and still available; the eviction process is set out in our guide to ending a French tenancy. What you cannot do is dress the known defect up as your motive. The studio’s landlord learned the difference across seven years of litigation and a trip to the highest court. Cheaper to learn it here.
FAQ: notice, indecency and conformity works
Can a French landlord evict a tenant in order to renovate an indecent flat?
Not where the landlord knew the flat was indecent when the lease was signed. On 4 June 2026 the Cour de cassation held that carrying out works to remedy a defect the landlord was aware of at the conclusion of the lease is not a legitimate and serious reason for a conge. The works must be done with the tenant in place.
What is the legal basis for the rule?
Article 1719, 1° of the Code civil, read with articles 6, 15 and 20-1 of the law of 6 July 1989. Article 1719 bars a landlord from using the nullity or termination of a lease to evict an occupant from premises unfit for habitation, and the Court confirmed that a notice to quit cannot be used to sidestep that bar.
When is the landlord’s knowledge assessed?
At the moment the lease is concluded. The good-faith requirement is judged as at the formation of the contract, so what matters is whether the landlord knew, or should have known, that the dwelling was sub-standard when it was let.
How does this affect a G-rated (DPE) rental?
A G-rated dwelling has been legally indecent in mainland France since 1 January 2025. A landlord who knew the rating when the lease was signed cannot serve notice to vacate and carry out the energy works; under article 20-1 the upgrade has to happen with the tenant in occupation.
Did the tenant escape all liability?
No. The Court overturned the notice to quit and the eviction, but it left standing the tenant’s separate liability for 3,000 euros of genuine rent arrears, and remitted the case to the Paris court of appeal. A real, independent ground for a claim survives on its own merits; it simply cannot be the known decency defect repackaged as a reason to evict.
