The owner must provide the tenant with decent accommodation, according to article 6 of the law of 6 July 1989. Decent housing meets 5 criteria: minimum surface area, absence of risks for the safety and health of the tenant, absence of harmful animals and parasites, minimum energy performance, the supply of certain equipment, according to the Service-public.fr site. The Court of Cassation reminds us of this in a decision of 16 May 2024 (Cass.Civ3, 16.05.2024, 23-12.438).
Only a case of force majeure can exempt the landlord from the obligation to provide decent accommodation, recalls the Court of Cassation. For example, a landslide on one of the neighbors due to bad weather can be qualified as a case of force majeure. This is an unpredictable element, a natural disaster.
3,000 euro fine for landlords
In this case, in November 2013, the tenants had rented a property but on December 21, 2015, the owners demanded unpaid rent from them. In 2018, the landlords took them to court to terminate the lease, evict them and get back rent paid. Tenants cited the indecency of the accommodation to justify the unpaid rent. They demanded that repair work be carried out, rent payments suspended and compensation for losses.
The Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the landlords and rejected the tenants’ claims. It found that the accommodation was decent when the tenants entered and that traces of damp had been noticed in 2015 but that the owners had carried out repairs to the roof in 2017. The Court of Cassation rejected this decision. For her, tenants can complain about indecent accommodation. “Even if the criteria of decency are respected at the beginning of the tenancy, only a case of force majeure can exempt the landlord from the obligation to provide decent accommodation, which arose during the tenancy. The landlord is required to compensate the tenant for any damage suffered which makes the accommodation incompatible with the rules of decorum.», comments Me Neu-Janicki, real estate lawyer, on his website. The owners were sentenced to pay the tenants the sum of 3,000 euros.