Eviction in social housing: the institutional landlord's procedural circuit (CCAPEX, protocol, police assistance)

Unpaid rent in social housing is not handled like unpaid rent under a private lease. Between the report to the paying body, the mandatory referral to the CCAPEX, the social and financial assessment sent to the judge and the prefect's review of rehousing, the institutional landlord operates within an administrative circuit that determines whether its action is even admissible. Every badly calibrated step costs several months of proceedings and as many occupation indemnities left uncollected. This guide reconstructs the full chronology, from the first unpaid instalment to the requisition of the police force and, where relevant, to the claim for compensation against the State, identifying at each stage the fatal time limit and the lever available.

What unpaid rent means in social housing: three thresholds not to be confused

The question "how much unpaid rent before eviction from social housing" calls for an answer in three parts, because three distinct thresholds coexist and do not produce the same effects.

The first is contractual. Since Law No. 2023-668 of 27 July 2023, every residential lease contains a clause providing for termination by operation of law for non-payment of rent or service charges. The clause is now a matter of public policy: it applies from the first unpaid instalment, with no minimum threshold. Nothing prevents a payment order (commandement de payer) being issued for one month's rent.

The second is regulatory and governs the handling of housing benefit. Article R. 824-1 of the French Construction and Housing Code (CCH) defines unpaid rent as arising where the tenant has failed to pay two consecutive months of rent and charges or, where the benefit is paid directly to the landlord under a third-party payment arrangement, where the debt reaches twice the gross monthly amount of rent and charges. It is this threshold that triggers the obligation to report to the family allowance fund (CAF) or the agricultural social mutual fund (MSA).

The third is administrative and varies from one département to another: the prefectoral order sets the amount or age of debt from which the commissaire de justice (bailiff) reports the payment order to the commission for the coordination of actions to prevent evictions (CCAPEX). A social landlord operating in several départements must therefore configure its trigger thresholds département by département, failing which its report may be held to be late or premature.

In practice, social housing bodies (HLM) rarely begin the formal demand phase before two to three instalments are unpaid. This period has no normative value: it results from the interplay between the CAF process, the départemental charters for the prevention of evictions provided for in Article 7-1 of Law No. 90-449 of 31 May 1990, known as the Besson Act, and the body's own commitments on social tenancy management.

Phase 1: the administrative handling of the arrears, before any formal step

The report to the paying body and the continuation of the benefit

Once the arrears are established within the meaning of Article R. 824-1 of the CCH, the landlord refers the matter to the CAF or the MSA. The report is not a courtesy formality: it opens a phase of conditional continuation of the personalised housing benefit (APL), during which the paying body requests that a repayment plan be put in place. A failure to report exposes the landlord to suspension and then loss of the third-party payment, and therefore to an automatic worsening of the debt that it will then have to recover from an insolvent tenant.

The mechanism is as follows: as long as the repayment plan is complied with, the benefit continues to be paid to the landlord and is deducted from the current rent. As soon as the plan is terminated, the benefit is suspended and the debt grows at the rate of the gross rent. The chronology of the litigation must therefore be aligned with that of the CAF process, not the other way round.

The housing solidarity fund and the upstream CCAPEX

A referral to the housing solidarity fund (FSL), run by the départemental council, can clear all or part of the debt before any court action. It presupposes disposable income and a residual ability to pay: an FSL does not clear a structural debt on a dwelling that is under-occupied or manifestly unsuited to the household's resources.

The CCAPEX, created by Law No. 2009-323 of 25 March 2009 and substantially strengthened by Law No. 2014-366 of 24 March 2014, known as the ALUR Act, is governed by Article 7-2 of the Law of 31 May 1990. Co-chaired by the prefect and the president of the départemental council, it brings together the State, the département, the paying bodies, landlords, the départemental housing information agencies (ADIL) and associations. It issues opinions and recommendations addressed to landlords, paying bodies and the FSL, and centralises reports. It has no power to block the procedure: the landlord remains in control of its timetable. But a file that has passed through the CCAPEX with a recommendation that the tenant remain in the premises will subsequently weigh on the prefect's review of the request for police assistance.

Phase 2: the payment order and the six-week lock

The payment order invoking the termination clause opens the litigation phase. Since the Law of 27 July 2023, the clause takes effect only six weeks after an unsuccessful payment order, as against two months previously. This shortening is the only real gain in time that the reform gives the landlord.

The instrument is highly formal. It must reproduce the particulars prescribed by Article 24 of Law No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989, including the information on the possibility of referring the matter to the FSL and the contact details of the support services. An error in calculating the debt, an incorrect allocation of part payments or the omission of a mandatory particular exposes the instrument to nullity and to the loss of the starting date of the time limit. In social landlord eviction proceedings, redoing a defective payment order costs at least six weeks, and often more if it forces the summons to be pushed back beyond the winter truce.

The commissaire de justice reports the payment order to the CCAPEX once the thresholds in the prefectoral order are reached. This report is distinct from the referral preceding the summons discussed below, even though some départements accept that it may stand in its place.

A point of attention that is often overlooked: actions arising from the lease are subject to a three-year limitation period under Article 7-1 of the Law of 6 July 1989. Where an old debt has been handled through successive repayment plans, part of the arrears may be time-barred on the date of the summons. Acknowledgements of debt and part payments not expressly allocated to the oldest instalments then become decisive evidence. The three-year limitation regime for rent claims and the grounds for interrupting it are set out in our article on limitation of unpaid rent.

Phase 3: the mandatory referral to the CCAPEX and notification to the prefect

This is where the institutional landlord's circuit differs radically from that of a landlord who is an individual.

Two months before the summons, on pain of inadmissibility

Article 24 of the Law of 6 July 1989 prohibits corporate landlords, with the exception of private-law property companies (sociétés civiles) formed exclusively between relatives and relatives by marriage up to the fourth degree inclusive, from having a summons served seeking a declaration of termination before the expiry of a period of two months following the referral to the CCAPEX. The sanction is the inadmissibility of the claim, which the judge raises on the defendant's objection and which the landlord cannot cure during the proceedings without issuing a fresh summons.

This two-month period runs in parallel with the six-week period of the payment order, but not necessarily from the same date. Good practice is to make the CCAPEX referral at the same time as the payment order is served: the longer period then absorbs the shorter one, and the summons can be issued as soon as the second month ends. A gap of a few days between the two starting points is enough to push the hearing back by a quarter, given the backlog in the courts.

For the bodies referred to in Article L. 411-2 of the CCH, the reports made under Articles L. 353-15-1 and L. 442-6-1 of the same Code may count as a referral, depending on the départemental protocols. The landlord should secure this point in writing with the prefecture: proof of the referral and of its date is the first item the defence will challenge.

Six weeks before the hearing, notification to the State representative

The summons is notified to the State representative in the département, at the instance of the commissaire de justice, at least six weeks before the hearing, again on pain of inadmissibility. This period, reduced from two months to six weeks by the Law of 27 July 2023, allows the prefect to instruct the competent body to prepare the social and financial assessment (DSF) sent to the judge.

The DSF is not a neutral document. It guides the judge's view of the tenant's good faith, of the tenant's ability to resume payments and, ultimately, of whether time to pay should be granted. A well-advised social landlord anticipates this document by itself producing the full history of the tenant's account, the chronology of reminders, the earlier repayment plans and their termination. Showing that support measures have repeatedly failed is the argument that tips the judge towards simply recording that the termination clause has taken effect.

Phase 4: the hearing, the judgment and the suspension of the termination clause

The judge for protection disputes (juge des contentieux de la protection) records that the termination clause has taken effect if the payment order is regular and the debt has not been cleared at the end of the six-week period. Termination is then by operation of law: the judge has no discretion as to its principle, only as to its consequences.

These consequences are decisive. Under Article 24 of the 1989 Law and Article 1343-5 of the French Civil Code, the judge may, even of the judge's own motion, grant time to pay of up to three years. The grant of such time suspends the effects of the termination clause: if the tenant complies with the payment schedule and resumes paying the current rent, the clause is deemed never to have operated and the lease continues. Conversely, failure to meet a single instalment makes the termination final and the decision immediately enforceable, without a further hearing.

The wording of the operative part of the judgment is therefore an operational issue. The landlord has an interest in obtaining an automatic acceleration clause, stating expressly that, failing payment of a single monthly instalment when due, the whole debt becomes payable, the termination clause takes effect again and the eviction may be pursued on simple service. Without this wording, the landlord will have to prove the default in adversarial proceedings at the enforcement stage.

The eviction judgment is an enforceable title, the enforcement of which is time-barred after ten years under Article L. 111-4 of the French Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures (CPCE). This is the ultimate fatal time limit: a title not enforced for ten years becomes unusable and requires the entire circuit to be started afresh.

Phase 5: the social cohesion protocol, a tool specific to social housing

Once termination has been judicially recorded, the social landlord has an instrument that the private landlord does not: the social cohesion protocol (protocole de cohésion sociale), provided for in Article L. 442-6-5 of the CCH for HLM bodies and in Article L. 353-15-2 for subsidised housing stock.

The mechanism addresses a structural difficulty. After termination, the occupier is no longer a tenant: the occupier is an occupier without right or title, liable for an occupation indemnity, and in principle loses the benefit of housing aid. The debt therefore accelerates at the very moment when it is meant to be reduced. The protocol neutralises this effect: it serves as a title of occupation and allows the housing benefit to continue to be paid to the landlord.

In return, the occupier undertakes to pay regularly the occupation indemnity, equivalent to the rent, and to comply with a repayment plan. The protocol is concluded for a maximum period of two years, which may be extended by a further three years where the length of the repayment plan justifies it. If it is complied with to its end, the landlord signs a new lease. If it is terminated, the landlord resumes enforcement of the eviction judgment, without new proceedings on the merits, within the ten-year limit of Article L. 111-4 of the CPCE.

Seen from the creditor's side, the protocol is a trade-off and not an act of goodwill. It converts a claim for unaided occupation indemnity into a flow made partly collectable by the housing benefit, while preserving the enforceable title already obtained. It is justified whenever the household has a residual ability to pay and no rehousing solution is available, that is, where the grant of police assistance is likely to be deferred. It is much less justified in the face of a structural debt on an unsuitable dwelling, where it merely postpones the deadline while the arrears continue to build.

Phase 6: enforcement, from the order to vacate the premises to the requisition

The order to vacate the premises and its time limits

Eviction can take place only after service of an order to vacate the premises and the expiry of a period of two months (Article L. 412-1 of the CPCE). The commissaire de justice informs the prefect as soon as the order is served, so that the rehousing request is taken into account; failure to transmit it prevents the period from running.

The occupier may apply to the enforcement judge (juge de l'exécution) for time to leave on the basis of Articles L. 412-3 and L. 412-4 of the CPCE, where rehousing cannot take place under normal conditions. The Law of 27 July 2023 reduced the maximum of this time from three years to one year. This is the second net gain of the reform for landlords, and it means that an application by the occupier to the enforcement judge should no longer be regarded as a lasting stalemate.

The winter truce, provided for in Article L. 412-6 of the CPCE, suspends all evictions from 1 November to 31 March. It prevents neither the service of the order to vacate the premises nor the request for police assistance; it merely defers the physical enforcement. A well-constructed timetable therefore places the requisition request in January or February, so that the prefect's review is completed when the truce ends. On the exact scope of this suspension for the landlord, see our analysis of what the winter truce really suspends and what it does not prevent.

The requisition of the police force

Police assistance is requested from the prefect. Article L. 153-1 of the CPCE sets out the principle: the State lends its assistance to the enforcement of judgments and other enforceable titles. Article L. 153-3 specifies that silence kept for more than two months by the competent authority amounts to a decision of refusal.

In social housing, the review of the request systematically includes a rehousing component. The prefect assesses the household's situation, whether an enforceable right to housing (DALO) application has been made under Law No. 2007-290 of 5 March 2007, the CCAPEX's recommendations and the département's accommodation capacity. An implied or express refusal is therefore neither rare nor abnormal: it reflects the State's trade-off between enforcing the title and its duty to provide accommodation.

Compensation for the refusal of assistance

A refusal to lend police assistance engages the State's liability without fault, on the basis of the breach of equality before public burdens, a principle laid down by the Conseil d'État in the Couitéas judgment of 30 November 1923 and now enshrined in Article L. 153-1 of the CPCE. The landlord keeps its title and obtains compensation for the loss resulting from non-enforcement.

The procedure is as follows: a prior claim for compensation addressed to the prefect, then a full-jurisdiction action before the administrative court if the claim is rejected. Compensation in principle runs from the expiry of the two-month period following the request for assistance and covers the occupation indemnities not received as well as the charges that remained payable by the landlord. It requires proof that the loss is certain, which means distinguishing the loss attributable to the State's refusal from that attributable to the occupier's own insolvency. The substantive conditions for compensation and the quantification of the compensation claim against the State are dealt with separately in our article on compensation of the landlord where assistance is refused.

For an institutional landlord managing a stock of several thousand dwellings, this action is not marginal: properly industrialised, it turns an irrecoverable claim against an insolvent household into a claim against the State. It is still necessary to have time-stamped each step and kept proof of the request for assistance, which is the starting point of the two-month period.

The decision timetable: fatal time limits and breaking points

The time limits to be secured, in chronological order:

• arrears established within the meaning of Article R. 824-1 of the CCH: report to the CAF or the MSA, on pain of losing the third-party payment
• payment order invoking the termination clause: six weeks for the clause to take effect
• referral to the CCAPEX: at least two months before the summons, on pain of inadmissibility
• notification of the summons to the prefect: at least six weeks before the hearing, on pain of inadmissibility
• judicial time to pay: up to three years, with suspension of the effects of the termination clause
• social cohesion protocol: two years, extendable by three years
• order to vacate the premises: two months before any eviction
• time granted by the enforcement judge: one year at most since the Law of 27 July 2023
• winter truce: from 1 November to 31 March
• request for police assistance: implied refusal after two months, the starting point for compensation
• enforcement of the judgment: ten years, Article L. 111-4 of the CPCE
• recovery of rent arrears: three-year limitation period, Article 7-1 of the Law of 6 July 1989

Two breaking points structure this timetable. The first lies at the stage of the CCAPEX referral: it is the only inadmissibility that the landlord inflicts on itself, and it can be wholly avoided by correctly configuring the tenancy management tools. The second lies at the stage of the request for assistance: this is where the file ceases to be a matter of judicial strategy and becomes a matter of administrative and litigation strategy before the administrative judge.

Conclusion

Eviction from social housing is not a civil dispute with administrative formalities attached. It is a mixed procedure in which the judicial act is worth only as much as the administrative circuit that precedes it and the rigour of the requisition request that follows it. The institutional landlord that treats the CCAPEX as a box to be ticked, the DSF as a document to be endured and the refusal of assistance as inevitable accumulates rental liabilities that it will end up having to provision.

Our position is as follows: the social cohesion protocol should be decided after the judgment and not before, once the enforceable title is secured, and on the basis of a real analysis of solvency and not of a management principle. In parallel, every request for police assistance should be time-stamped and tracked, so as to trigger automatically the prior claim for compensation at the end of the two-month period.

Before launching a litigation recovery campaign across a portfolio of arrears, have your payment order templates, your proof of CCAPEX referral and the operative parts of your judgments audited: it is at these three points that months of proceedings are lost, not at the hearing.

Frequently asked questions

How many months of unpaid rent are needed before starting an eviction in social housing? No statutory threshold conditions the start of the procedure: the termination clause, made mandatory by Law No. 2023-668 of 27 July 2023, applies from the first unpaid instalment. The threshold of two consecutive months of rent and charges, or of twice the gross monthly rent under a third-party payment arrangement, is that of Article R. 824-1 of the French Construction and Housing Code and concerns only the report to the body paying the housing benefit. A third threshold, set by prefectoral order, triggers the report of the payment order to the CCAPEX. In practice, HLM bodies begin the formal demand phase after two to three unpaid instalments, depending on the départemental charters for the prevention of evictions.

Is a referral to the CCAPEX mandatory for a social landlord? Yes. Article 24 of the Law of 6 July 1989 prohibits corporate landlords, other than family property companies (sociétés civiles), from serving a summons seeking a declaration of termination before the expiry of a period of two months following the referral to the commission. The sanction is the inadmissibility of the claim. In some départements, the reports made under Articles L. 353-15-1 and L. 442-6-1 of the CCH may count as a referral, but this point must be confirmed in writing with the prefecture.

Does the social cohesion protocol cause the benefit of the eviction judgment to be lost? No. The protocol suspends enforcement of the judgment but does not extinguish it. If the repayment plan is not complied with or the occupation indemnity is not paid, the landlord resumes enforcement without new proceedings on the merits, within the ten-year limit of Article L. 111-4 of the French Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. If the protocol is complied with in full, a new lease is signed and the title becomes devoid of purpose.

What can be done if police assistance is refused? The refusal, whether express or arising from the prefect's silence for two months, gives a right to compensation on the basis of the State's liability without fault for breach of equality before public burdens, a principle derived from the Couitéas judgment of the Conseil d'État of 30 November 1923 and codified in Article L. 153-1 of the CPCE. The procedure requires a prior claim for compensation to the prefect, then a full-jurisdiction action before the administrative court. Compensation in principle covers the occupation indemnities not received from the expiry of the two-month period.

Does the winter truce block the whole eviction procedure? No. Article L. 412-6 of the CPCE suspends the physical enforcement of the eviction from 1 November to 31 March, but not the summons, the judgment, the order to vacate the premises or the request for police assistance. An optimised timetable places the requisition request during the truce, so that the prefect's review is completed by 1 April.

What time can the judge grant a defaulting tenant? On the merits, the judge for protection disputes may grant time to pay of up to three years, which suspends the effects of the termination clause for as long as the payment schedule and the current rent are met. At the enforcement stage, the enforcement judge may grant time to leave the premises, capped at one year since the Law of 27 July 2023, as against three years previously. The operative part of the judgment should provide for automatic acceleration, so as to avoid any later adversarial debate on the default.

Until when can the social landlord recover the rent arrears? Actions arising from the lease are subject to a three-year limitation period under Article 7-1 of the Law of 6 July 1989. In older files handled through successive repayment plans, part of the debt may be time-barred on the date of the summons. Express allocation of part payments to the oldest instalments and the retention of acknowledgements of debt are the two levers for preserving the recoverable base.