Rights of Owners

[Evianers]

Can anyone who really knows something about the law in France please help? We have had our property rented out to a French family since November last year. We were under the impression that if we needed/wanted to go and live in this house ourselves as it is our principal/only residence, we had the right to give them six months notice to vacate the property. Our managing agents say this is not the case: we only have the right to give six months notice at the end of their lease, i.e. six months before November 2006. We may have the possibility to take early retirement and would need to take possession of our own property in June/July next year. Question is, under French law, can we do this? We seem to have read somewhere (Rutherford's book perhaps) that we can give six months notice at any time.

[Richardbk]

As a private individual you can set the term of an unfurnished let to a minimum of 1 year (BTW this is not the case for a company that is leasing) HOWEVER this shorter period has to be written into the original letting contract and in addition justification has to be given in the contract as to why the contract is for less than 3 years. e.g work, retirement etc.

Otherwise you are stuck with the standard 3 year default, which I guess is in your contract . The minimum notice that must be given to the tennants is 2 months before the end of the lease, but the contract may stipulate a longer notice period.

Also note that if the tennants decide not to leave after 3 years - e.g have young children, it is winter etc you will have a certain amount of difficulty in removing them.

regs

Richard

[BJSLIV]

I assume you are renting unfurnished.
Your six month right to end the lease because you intend to live in the property comes into effect six months before the end of the rental period specified in the contract. Presumably your contract started in Nov 2003 hence you can serve the notice in April 2006. If the tenant wants to end end the lease they only need to give three months notice at any time.
Take care because if you do not serve the notice at the correct time the lease is automatically renewed for further period.
http://www.laforet.com/louer/infos.php

[Deby]

You could always ask them politely and if you are desparate offer to pay for their removal costs! Sometimes this works, but you would have to get at least 5 quotes beforehand.

Also on the rental side if you are a tenant in France and one of you loses their job or becomes ill, you can vacate even sooner 1 month is normal in this instance.

Best of luck!
Deby