Eviction for unpaid rent: the landlord's procedural timetable, step by step

Unpaid rent is managed as a timetable, not as a file. Every act served opens a time limit, and every time limit missed costs either a quarter of procedure or an inadmissibility that forces you to start again from the first act. For an institutional landlord, a property company or an investor holding several units in the Île-de-France region, the question is not whether eviction will be ordered, but on what date the dwelling will be vacated and what proportion of the rent debt will still be recoverable on that date. Law No. 2023-668 of 27 July 2023 on protecting homes against unlawful occupation tightened several of these time limits, without removing the costliest bottlenecks, foremost among them obtaining police assistance (concours de la force publique). This guide goes through the eviction procedure act by act, identifying at each stage the fatal time limit, the act that triggers it and the choice the landlord must make at that precise moment.

Before any act: checking the contractual foundation and the recovery window

The first choice is made before a single act is served, on reading the lease and the tenant's account.

The termination clause (clause résolutoire) governs the whole timetable. Since the Law of 27 July 2023, Article 24, I of Law No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989 requires every residential lease to contain a clause providing for automatic termination of the contract for failure to pay the rent or service charges when due, or for failure to insure. For earlier leases that lack such a clause, the landlord remains confined to an action for termination by the court, the regime of which is radically different: the court has sole discretion to assess the seriousness of the breach, may refuse termination despite an established debt, and its decision is constitutive, that is to say the lease ends only on the date of the judgment. Automatic termination, by contrast, is acquired simply through the expiry of the period under the payment order: the court merely records it, its decision is declaratory, and the occupation indemnity runs from the date the clause took effect.

The second point to check is limitation. Article 7-1 of the Law of 6 July 1989 subjects actions arising from the lease to a three-year limitation period. Old arrears, left to build up over several financial years through lack of control of the account, become irrecoverable as to the oldest part. The payment order (commandement de payer) interrupts limitation for the sums it covers: that is reason enough, on its own, not to delay serving it.

The third point concerns guarantees. Unpaid rent insurance, personal guarantee, Visale guarantee: each has a contractual time limit for declaring a claim, generally much shorter than the court timetable, and expiry of which results in forfeiture. As regards personal guarantees, the annual information obligation owed to a guarantor who is an individual (Article 2302 of the French Civil Code, resulting from Ordinance No. 2021-1192 of 15 September 2021 reforming the law of security interests) is sanctioned by forfeiture of the interest and penalties accrued since the previous notice. A landlord who neglects this formality keeps its claim for the principal but loses the accessory, sometimes over several years.

The payment order: starting point of the six-week period

The payment order invoking the termination clause, served by a commissaire de justice (bailiff) at the landlord's request, opens the pre-litigation phase. The 2023 reform reduced from two months to six weeks the period the tenant has to put matters right. On expiry of that period, if the payment order has remained unsuccessful, the clause takes effect automatically and the lease is terminated.

The act carries a high formal risk. Article 24, I of the 1989 Law requires, on pain of nullity, a set of statements: the statement of the debt distinguishing rent, service charges and ancillary items, the warning that the tenant has six weeks to pay, the possibility of applying to the housing solidarity fund (fonds de solidarité pour le logement), the possibility of applying to the court for time to pay, and the statement that the commission for coordinating actions to prevent evictions (CCAPEX) may be approached. An incorrect statement of the debt, an omitted statement, a badly worded time limit: nullity of the payment order deprives the landlord of its starting point and requires a new act to be served, that is six weeks lost, at best.

The commissaire de justice also reports the payment order to the CCAPEX where the debt exceeds the amount and age thresholds set by order. This reporting is not a formality for the landlord, but it triggers the involvement of the social services and feeds the file that will be put before the judge.

Two practical difficulties are concentrated in these six weeks. The first is the allocation of partial payments. A tenant who pays a sum with no specific allocation during the period raises the question of allocation (Article 1342-10 of the Civil Code): to the debt covered by the payment order or to the current rent? The choice is not neutral, because full payment of the sum covered within the period prevents the termination clause from taking effect, even if new rent terms have fallen due since. The second is the statement of account: it must remain consistent from the payment order to the hearing, a contradictory statement between the two acts being the first challenge raised in defence.

Steps before the summons: two separate conditions of admissibility

It is at this stage that the eviction procedure is most often lost, because two obligations of different kinds overlap and failure to comply with them is sanctioned by inadmissibility of the claim.

The first applies specifically to corporate landlords. Article 24, III of the 1989 Law prohibits corporate landlords, other than family civil companies (sociétés civiles) formed exclusively between relatives and relatives by marriage up to the fourth degree inclusive, from having a summons seeking a declaration of termination served before the expiry of a period of two months following referral to the CCAPEX. A property company, an investment company or a social housing body is therefore bound by this prior referral, and by this two-month waiting period, whereas a strictly family SCI (French property holding company) is exempt. Checking the make-up of the holding entity's share capital therefore directly determines the date on which the summons can be served.

The second obligation is common to all landlords: the summons seeking a declaration of termination must be notified to the State representative in the département, by act of the commissaire de justice, at least six weeks before the hearing, on pain of inadmissibility that the court may raise of its own motion. The Law of 27 July 2023 reduced this period from two months to six weeks. This notification triggers a social and financial assessment, sent to the judge before the hearing and intended to inform the judge's decision on time limits.

In concrete terms, a corporate landlord's timetable is built by working backwards from the desired hearing date: referral to the CCAPEX, then two months' waiting, then service of the summons for a hearing date set at least six weeks later, with simultaneous notification to the prefect. Any compression of these time limits is ineffective: it is paid for by an adjournment, or even by inadmissibility.

The hearing: recording the clause, termination by the court and periods of grace

The judge for protection disputes (juge des contentieux de la protection) of the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire) for the place where the building is situated has sole jurisdiction. The landlord has a real procedural choice between bringing the matter on the merits and summary proceedings (référé). The judge in summary proceedings may record that the termination clause has taken effect and order eviction where the obligation is not seriously contestable (Articles 834 and 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure), which significantly shortens the time needed to obtain the title. The judge cannot, however, order termination by the court, which requires an assessment on the merits. The choice therefore depends on a prior diagnosis: where the termination clause has been validly implemented and the debt is liquid, summary proceedings are the obvious route; where the lease has no termination clause, the statement of account is open to challenge or a serious dispute is announced, the merits are the only workable route.

At the hearing, the central issue is how time limits are dealt with. Two bases coexist and must not be confused.

The periods for payment under Article 24, V of the 1989 Law may be granted to the tenant for up to three years. Their effect is formidable for the landlord: while the periods are running, the effects of the termination clause are suspended, and if the tenant pays off the debt in full according to the schedule set, the clause is deemed never to have taken effect. The lease revives. Conversely, failure to meet a single instalment makes the clause effective again and allows enforcement to continue, which justifies systematically asking for an acceleration clause to be included in the operative part of the judgment.

The reform of eviction for unpaid rent introduced by the Law of 27 July 2023 tightened this mechanism by removing the judge's power to grant these periods of the judge's own motion: they must now be requested by the tenant. In practice, a defaulting tenant who attends the hearing will make this request; the contribution of the reform is felt mainly in files where the tenant does not appear.

The periods to leave the premises, provided for in Articles L. 412-3 and L. 412-4 of the French Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, follow a different logic: they do not call into question the termination already acquired but defer eviction, the tenant, who has become an occupant without right or title, remaining liable for an occupation indemnity. On this point, the 2023 Law greatly reduced the landlord's exposure: the length of these periods, previously between three months and three years, is now set between one month and one year.

The operative part of the judgment must be drafted with care: a declaration of termination on a certain date, eviction with, if necessary, police assistance and a locksmith, an order to pay the arrears and fixing of a monthly occupation indemnity until the premises are actually vacated. An occupation indemnity that has been contractually increased may be reduced if the judge treats it as a manifestly excessive penalty clause (Article 1231-5 of the Civil Code).

From judgment to the order to vacate

The judgment carries provisional enforcement by operation of law (Article 514 of the Code of Civil Procedure in the wording resulting from Decree No. 2019-1333 of 11 December 2019). An appeal is therefore not suspensive, unless a stay of provisional enforcement is obtained from the First President under the conditions of Article 514-3 of the same Code. This is strategically important: an appeal by the tenant must not lead the landlord to suspend its enforcement steps of its own accord.

Service of the judgment starts the one-month period for appeal and is a precondition for any enforcement measure. The commissaire de justice then serves the order to vacate (commandement de quitter les lieux). Article L. 412-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures prohibits any eviction before the expiry of a period of two months following this order, a period that the judge may shorten, in particular where the tenant's situation justifies it or where rehousing is ensured. This two-month period is cumulative, where applicable, with the periods granted under Article L. 412-3. The circumstances in which this period may be shortened and how it interacts with periods of grace are set out in our article on the order to vacate.

The order to vacate is also reported to the prefect, which opens the administrative phase.

Police assistance: the real bottleneck

On expiry of the two-month period, in the absence of voluntary departure, the commissaire de justice draws up a record of the attempted eviction and sends the prefect a request seeking police assistance. Article L. 153-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures lays down the principle: the State is required to provide its assistance in the enforcement of court decisions.

The administration's silence for two months amounts to an implied decision of refusal. It is at this stage that most of the landlord's economic loss is determined, because a refusal, express or implied, based on public order or on the absence of a rehousing solution, can last for several quarters.

A refusal is not the end. It gives rise to a right to compensation on the basis of the State's no-fault liability for breach of equality before public burdens, a principle laid down by the Conseil d'État in its Couitéas judgment of 30 November 1923 and now enshrined in Article L. 153-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. The prior claim for compensation is addressed to the prefect, and the claim is then brought before the administrative court. Compensation covers in principle the loss of rent and occupation indemnities from the expiry of the two-month period following the request, together with the procedural costs incurred. For an institutional landlord managing a portfolio, this claim is not a matter of litigating a point of principle but of management discipline: it turns a doubtful claim against an insolvent tenant into a claim against the State. The quantification of the compensation claim and the substantive conditions for compensation are dealt with separately in our article on the refusal of police assistance.

Winter truce, fate of furniture and parallel recovery

Article L. 412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures suspends evictions from 1 November to 31 March of the following year, subject to exhaustively listed exceptions, in particular where rehousing is ensured in sufficient conditions or in the case of unlawful occupation. The truce suspends neither the court procedure nor the service of acts: it blocks only physical enforcement. An order to vacate served in December will take effect from 1 April, which justifies never interrupting the procedural timetable during the winter. On the exact scope of the stay and the exceptions that allow enforcement in winter, see our analysis of what the winter truce really suspends for the landlord.

Once the eviction has been carried out, the commissaire de justice draws up a record and deals with the furniture left on the premises under Articles L. 433-1 et seq. of the same Code, the tenant having a period in which to remove it before it is sold at auction or declared abandoned. The landlord may in no circumstances dispose of the goods itself.

In parallel, the title obtained must be used without waiting for the premises to be vacated. Attachment of bank accounts (saisie-attribution), attachment of earnings, now taken out of the court process and entrusted to commissaires de justice since 1 July 2025, action against the guarantor: these measures are subject to a ten-year limitation period from the enforceable title (Article L. 111-4 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). Two events nevertheless disrupt this aspect: the admissibility of an over-indebtedness application, which suspends enforcement proceedings and may lead to the rent debt being written off, and the opening of collective insolvency proceedings where the tenant is a business.

The decision timetable in summary

The milestones whose neglect cannot be remedied, for a corporate landlord:

• service of the payment order invoking the termination clause: interrupts the three-year limitation period, opens the six-week period
• referral to the CCAPEX: condition of admissibility of the summons, with a compulsory two-month wait
• notification of the summons to the prefect: at least six weeks before the hearing, on pain of inadmissibility
• service of the judgment: precondition for any enforcement, starting point of the one-month appeal period
• order to vacate: two-month period before any eviction (Article L. 412-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures)
• request for police assistance: the prefect's silence for two months amounts to refusal and opens the claim for compensation

Conclusion

The eviction procedure is not long in itself: it is long because it is badly sequenced. The time limits that the Law of 27 July 2023 reduced, six weeks for the payment order, six weeks for notification to the prefect, a maximum of one year for the periods under Article L. 412-4, produce their effect only if the landlord serves each act on the day it becomes possible to serve it. The real scope for improved performance is not at the hearing, where the outcome is generally settled, but in the weeks that precede it and the months that follow it, when the administrative battle for police assistance is fought.

Our recommendation is twofold. Have the termination clause in your standard leases and the state of your information obligations towards guarantors audited, ahead of any litigation: these two checks determine the procedural route open and the amount that is really recoverable. Then treat the request for police assistance as a stage of your timetable in its own right, with its expiry date and its prior compensation claim scheduled, and not as a risk to be endured.

Frequently asked questions

What is the period under the payment order since the 2023 reform? The period is six weeks, instead of two months previously. Law No. 2023-668 of 27 July 2023 amended Article 24, I of the Law of 6 July 1989 on this point. On expiry of that period, if the payment order has remained unsuccessful, the termination clause takes effect automatically and the lease is terminated, the judge having only to record that termination. The payment order must include, on pain of nullity, the statement of the debt and all the information statements required by the text.

Must a corporate landlord refer the matter to the CCAPEX before issuing a summons? Yes, and it is a condition of admissibility. Article 24, III of the Law of 6 July 1989 prohibits corporate landlords from serving a summons seeking a declaration of termination before the expiry of a period of two months following referral to the commission for coordinating actions to prevent evictions. Only civil companies formed exclusively between relatives and relatives by marriage up to the fourth degree inclusive are exempt from this obligation. A property company or an investment company must therefore build these two months into its timetable.

Can the judge still grant periods for payment of the judge's own motion? The Law of 27 July 2023 removed the judge's power to grant of the judge's own motion the periods provided for in Article 24, V of the Law of 6 July 1989: they must be requested by the tenant. These periods remain capped at three years. While they are running, the effects of the termination clause are suspended, and if the tenant complies with them in full the clause is treated as never having taken effect. Including an acceleration clause in the judgment is therefore essential.

How long can the judge defer eviction? Since the 2023 reform, periods to leave the premises granted under Articles L. 412-3 and L. 412-4 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures may be no shorter than one month and no longer than one year, instead of three months to three years previously. These periods are added to the two-month period following the order to vacate provided for in Article L. 412-1. Throughout this period, the occupant remains liable for the occupation indemnity fixed by the judgment.

What should be done if the prefect refuses police assistance? Silence for two months after the request amounts to implied refusal. The landlord then sends a prior claim for compensation to the prefect, and then brings the matter before the administrative court on the basis of the State's no-fault liability for breach of equality before public burdens, a principle derived from the Conseil d'État's Couitéas judgment of 30 November 1923 and enshrined in Article L. 153-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. Compensation covers in principle the rent and occupation indemnities lost from the expiry of the two-month period, together with the procedural costs.

Does the winter truce interrupt the court procedure? No. The winter truce, from 1 November to 31 March (Article L. 412-6 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures), suspends only the physical enforcement of eviction measures. The payment order, the summons, the hearing, the judgment, its service and the order to vacate may be served and obtained during this period. Interrupting steps during the winter amounts to pushing back the vacating of the dwelling by the same length of time.

Can old unpaid rent still be recovered? Article 7-1 of the Law of 6 July 1989 subjects actions arising from the lease to a three-year limitation period. Beyond that, the oldest part of the arrears is no longer payable. The payment order and the summons interrupt limitation for the sums they cover, which justifies not allowing a tenant's account to deteriorate over several financial years before starting the procedure.