Police Assistance Refused: State Compensation for the Landlord (Art. L. 153-1 CPCE)

An enforceable eviction judgment is not an eviction. Between service of the order and actual vacation of the premises lies an administrative sequence that many landlords, institutional ones included, discover too late: the order to vacate the premises (commandement de quitter les lieux), notification to the prefect, the unsuccessful attempt, and then the requisition of police assistance (concours de la force publique), which may be refused, without apparent reasons, by the mere passing of time. This refusal is not a failure: it gives rise to a right to compensation against the State under Article L. 153-1 of the French Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures (code des procédures civiles d'exécution, CPCE). It is still necessary to have secured each step in the enforcement chain, to have made the claim in the proper form, and to have quantified the claim item by item. This guide treats the post-judgment phase as a decision timetable, then details how the compensation claim against the State is built, with a specific section on commercial premises.

A refusal of assistance is not a hazard: it is a claim against the State

The principle is long established and protective. In its Couitéas judgment of 30 November 1923, the Conseil d'État held that the administration's refusal to lend assistance to the enforcement of a court decision, on public order grounds, engages the strict liability of the State on the basis of a breach of equality before public burdens. This case-law principle has been codified. Article L. 153-1 of the CPCE provides:

“The State is required to lend its assistance to the enforcement of judgments and other enforceable titles. The State's refusal to lend its assistance gives rise to a right to compensation.”

The wording is twofold and its articulation must be grasped. The first sentence imposes an obligation of result on the State. The second removes the need to prove fault: the landlord does not have to establish that the prefect acted wrongly, only that he refused. At European level, the European Court of Human Rights, in Hornsby v. Greece of 19 March 1997, recognised the right to enforcement of court decisions as a component of the fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. A prolonged and uncompensated refusal therefore amounts to an interference both with the right to property and with the right of access to a court.

The economic consequence is direct: faced with an insolvent occupier, the State in practice steps into the shoes of the defaulting debtor from the date of the refusal. The landlord exchanges a claim for occupation indemnity against an occupier without resources for a compensation claim against a solvent debtor. The corresponding appropriations are, moreover, entered in the budget of the Ministry of the Interior, under legal and litigation affairs within the programme “Conduct and steering of home affairs policies”. This shift does not occur automatically. It presupposes an unbroken procedural chain.

The post-judgment timetable, step by step

Step 1: service of the judgment and securing its enforceable character

Eviction requires an enforceable title within the meaning of Article L. 111-3 of the CPCE. The judgment must be served on the occupier. If provisional enforcement has been ordered or applies by operation of law, enforcement may proceed notwithstanding appeal, at the landlord's risk. At this stage, two checks condition everything that follows: the exhaustive identification of the occupiers, including those occupying through the tenant (“occupants du chef”), and the conformity of the operative part of the judgment, which must provide for the eviction of the occupier and of all those occupying through him or her, if necessary with the assistance of the police and a locksmith. An incomplete operative part weakens the requisition and gives the prefect a ground for refusal that is hard to challenge.

Step 2: the order to vacate and the two-month period

Article L. 411-1 of the CPCE makes eviction subject to prior service of an order to vacate the premises. Article L. 412-1 adds, where the eviction concerns premises used as the main residence of the person evicted or of an occupier claiming through him or her, a period of two months following the order during which the eviction may not take place. The judge may reduce or remove this period, in particular where the occupiers entered the premises by force; Law No. 2023-668 of 27 July 2023 on protecting housing against unlawful occupation has tightened the regime applicable to such situations. Conversely, the judge may extend it, up to three months, having regard to the occupiers' situation. The sequence of steps following the judgment is detailed in our article on the enforcement timetable of the order to vacate the premises.

This two-month period is not a refusal of assistance and gives rise to no right to compensation. It is a general statutory burden, borne by all landlords, and therefore lacks the abnormal and special character on which strict liability is founded. The same logic applies to the winter truce (trêve hivernale) under Article L. 412-6, which suspends unexecuted eviction measures from 1 November to 31 March, and to the periods of grace granted by the judge under Articles L. 412-3 and L. 412-4. In practice, the administration systematically relies on these periods when the claim is quantified: they must be neutralised from the outset when the statement of account is prepared, failing which the claim loses credibility.

Step 3: notification to the prefect, the trigger that is forgotten

This is the most frequent breaking point in residential cases. Article L. 412-5 of the CPCE requires the commissaire de justice (bailiff), as soon as the order is served, to inform the State's representative in the département, so that the rehousing request is taken into account. As long as this notification has not been made, the two-month period under Article L. 412-1 is suspended. An order served without notification to the prefecture therefore starts no period running: a requisition submitted two months later is premature, and the compensation clock does not start.

This notification feeds the departmental prevention scheme, in particular the coordination commission for the prevention of evictions (CCAPEX). An institutional landlord has every interest in following this strand: an occupier recognised as a priority under the enforceable right to housing (droit au logement opposable, DALO) and not rehoused almost mechanically leads to a refusal of assistance, but this also reinforces the attribution of the loss to the State's default.

Step 4: the eviction attempt and the record of difficulty

On expiry of the periods, the commissaire de justice attends the premises. If the occupier opens the door and leaves, the eviction is recorded. If the occupier refuses, is absent or resistance is foreseeable, the commissaire de justice draws up a record of the eviction attempt or of difficulty. This document is decisive: it evidences the impossibility of enforcing without police assistance and is the first document in the future compensation file. A file built without a record, on the mere assertion that the occupier remained, runs into a debate on whether the creditor was actually diligent.

Step 5: the requisition and silence amounting to refusal

The request for assistance is sent to the prefect by the commissaire de justice. Article R. 153-1 of the CPCE attaches to the prefect's silence for two months the value of a decision of refusal. This rule derogates from the principle that the administration's silence amounts to acceptance, laid down by Article L. 231-1 of the French Code on Relations between the Public and the Administration. In other words, on the question of the time limit for police assistance in an eviction, the practical answer is as follows: two months from receipt of the requisition, at the end of which the absence of a reply legally crystallises the refusal.

This starting point is that of compensation. The compensable loss runs from the date on which assistance should have been granted, that is, on expiry of the two-month period, and not from the judgment or the order. The entire value of the claim therefore depends on the traceability of the date on which the prefecture received the requisition: acknowledgment of receipt, delivery against receipt, time-stamped electronic transmission.

The substantive conditions for compensation

The State's liability for a refusal of assistance requires several cumulative elements. The claimant must show an enforceable title not affected by a suspensive remedy, a regular requisition addressed to the competent authority, an express or implied refusal, a direct and certain loss, and the abnormal and special character of the burden borne.

The special character lies in the fact that the landlord alone bears, in its own assets, the cost of a decision taken in the general interest, generally to prevent a disturbance of public order or for want of a rehousing solution. The abnormal character lies in the duration and extent of the deprivation. A prolonged occupation of several months after the refusal generally satisfies this condition; a default of a few weeks satisfies it less readily.

Several grounds for total or partial exoneration must be anticipated. First, the landlord's conduct: prolonged inaction, implied waiver of enforcement, parallel negotiation of a settlement plan amounting to a temporary waiver, failure to follow up the requisition. Second, irregularity in the enforcement chain: order not notified to the prefect, eviction attempted during the truce, title not served. Finally, the victim's own fault, where the landlord contributed to the situation, for example by allowing an occupier without right or title to settle without reacting. A refusal based on an illegality of the title or on an absolute material impossibility may also reduce the base. On quickly obtaining a title against such an occupier, see our analysis of summary proceedings (référé) to evict an occupier without right or title.

Quantifying the compensation claim against the State

The foundation: occupation indemnity and service charges

The main head of claim corresponds to the consideration for occupation that the landlord would have received had the eviction taken place. The basis used is the occupation indemnity set by the judgment or, failing that, the rental value, increased by recoverable service charges actually incurred (water, heating, recoverable co-ownership charges (charges de copropriété), household waste collection tax). The statement of account is drawn up month by month, from the day after expiry of the two-month period following the requisition until actual vacation of the premises or the date of the claim, with later updating.

Two adjustments are systematic. First, sums actually collected from the occupier or a guarantor over the period must be deducted, together with sums paid by an unpaid rent insurer or under a guarantee scheme. The State compensates only the net loss. Second, periods not attributable to the refusal must be neutralised: the statutory two-month period, judicial periods of grace, the winter truce. A gross statement of account, without adjustment, exposes the claimant to a significant reduction.

Additional heads of claim

Enforcement costs incurred to no avail are compensable where directly linked to the refusal: costs of unsuccessful eviction attempts, repeated requisitions, records of findings. The initial legal costs, incurred to obtain the title, fall in principle under Article 700 of the French Code of Civil Procedure and not within the claim against the State.

Damage caused by the occupier during the period of enforced retention in the premises is compensable provided it post-dates the refusal and is established by an adversarial record of findings. The standard of proof is demanding: a record of the condition of the premises before the eviction attempt, followed by a record on recovery of possession, is the only serious basis. Without an intermediate inventory, it is impossible to apportion damage between that occurring before and after the refusal, and the head of claim is rejected.

Loss of enjoyment, understood as the impossibility of disposing of the property, cannot be combined with the occupation indemnity for the same period: this would amount to double compensation for the same damage. It regains its usefulness where the landlord did not intend to relet but to sell, occupy or restructure. In that case, the loss is quantified differently: financial carrying cost, loss of a chance of achieving a sale at a given price, discount linked to the sale of an occupied asset, postponement of a works programme.

Interest, capitalisation and updating

The claim bears interest at the statutory rate from the prior compensation request. Capitalisation of interest may be requested under Article 1343-2 of the French Civil Code, at each annual anniversary. For an institutional landlord managing a portfolio, these items are not incidental: over an occupation of several years, they represent a not insignificant fraction of the recovery.

Making the claim: prior request, jurisdiction, limitation

Compensation litigation falls within the jurisdiction of the administrative courts and is subject to the prior-decision rule laid down by Article R. 421-1 of the French Code of Administrative Justice. The landlord therefore sends to the prefect of the département, and not to the commissaire de justice or the Treasury, a quantified compensation request, accompanied by the judgment, its service, the order, proof of notification to the prefecture, the record of the attempt, the requisition, the prefecture's acknowledgment of receipt and the detailed statement of account. Silence for two months amounts to rejection and binds the litigation.

The full-jurisdiction action (recours de plein contentieux) is then brought before the territorially competent administrative court. It should be noted that an implied decision of rejection does not start the two-month period for appeal where the acknowledgment of receipt of the request did not state the remedies and time limits. This flexibility should not, however, lead to delaying the action, for a reason of substance: the four-year limitation period.

Under Law No. 68-1250 of 31 December 1968, claims against the State are time-barred four years from the first day of the year following that in which the rights were acquired. Since the loss resulting from a refusal of assistance is continuing, it renews month after month: each annual fraction has its own starting point. An occupation of six years without any claim therefore results in the definitive loss of the first annual instalments. The operational discipline is to file a first request as soon as the refusal is established, and then to update it periodically for as long as the occupation continues.

As regards remedies against the refusal of police assistance in an eviction, the action for misuse of power (excès de pouvoir) against the refusal decision remains open within two months, as does the suspension application (référé-suspension) under Article L. 521-1 of the French Code of Administrative Justice and, in situations of serious interference with the right to property, the application under Article L. 521-2. Their interest is strategic rather than compensatory: they put pressure on the prefecture and document the default. In most cases, the compensation route remains the most effective, because it turns a blockage into cash flow.

The commercial premises variant

A distinct procedural regime

Eviction from commercial premises with police assistance follows rules that differ significantly from those for housing, and this distinction is too rarely exploited on the landlord's side. The protective periods of Articles L. 412-1 to L. 412-6 of the CPCE apply to premises used for residential purposes. Exclusively commercial premises therefore escape both the two-month period following the order to vacate and the winter truce. Mixed-use premises, in which the tenant resides, call for a case-by-case analysis and generally reactivate these protections.

Upstream, the chronology is governed by commercial lease law. The forfeiture clause (clause résolutoire) takes effect only one month after an order that has remained unsuccessful, in accordance with Article L. 145-41 of the French Commercial Code, the judge retaining the power to suspend the effects of the clause and to grant time to pay under Article 1343-5 of the French Civil Code. Once termination has been established and eviction ordered, the sequence joins the ordinary rules: order to vacate, attempt, record, requisition, two months' silence amounting to refusal. The formal requirements of that order, on which termination depends, are dealt with separately in our article on the order to pay invoking the forfeiture clause.

The grounds for refusal also differ. They relate less to rehousing than to the preservation of economic and social public order: risk of disturbance in the event of evacuation of an establishment open to the public, presence of employees, sensitive activity, local mobilisation, activist occupation of a vacant unit. These grounds are perfectly legitimate from the prefecture's point of view, but they are precisely the basis for a requisition of police assistance refused in the general interest, and therefore for compensation.

A heavier and more demonstrable quantification

The commercial landlord's loss lends itself better to objective quantification than that of a residential landlord. In addition to the occupation indemnity and service charges, several specific heads of claim deserve to be documented: the rent of a replacement tenant whose signed lease could not take effect, the late-delivery penalties owed to that tenant, the loss of the negotiated entry fee, the carrying cost of an asset financed by debt, the impact of prolonged vacancy on the valuation of the building at the date of a portfolio disposal decision, or the blocking of a restructuring programme including energy compliance works whose timetable is constrained by the tertiary-sector energy efficiency scheme (dispositif éco-énergie tertiaire).

These heads of claim are not automatically admitted. Their admissibility depends on producing documents contemporaneous with the refusal: lease signed subject to vacation, letter of intent, marketing mandate, works contract, financing amortisation schedule. An economic loss alleged without contractual support pre-dating the refusal is recharacterised as loss of a chance, with a substantial reduction.

The pitfall of the tenant's collective proceedings

A final point of vigilance, decisive for an institutional landlord: the opening of collective insolvency proceedings in respect of the tenant. The stay of individual proceedings provided for by Article L. 622-21 of the French Commercial Code paralyses an action for termination based on rent due before the opening judgment. Termination definitively acquired before that date may, by contrast, be pursued. For rent falling due afterwards, termination may be sought only on expiry of the three-month period following the opening judgment, under Article L. 622-14 of the French Commercial Code.

The consequence for the claim against the State is clear: during the period of statutory paralysis, the impossibility of evicting does not stem from a prefectoral refusal but from the law. It is therefore not compensable under Article L. 153-1. The compensation claim is reconstituted only from the point at which, the title having again become enforceable, a regular requisition is submitted and refused. The sequencing of the two sets of proceedings, commercial and administrative, determines the base for compensation.

What the landlord must decide

A refusal of assistance should not be treated as an incident suffered but as a change of debtor. The strategic question is not whether the State will compensate, since it is required to, but on what base and for what duration. That base is built upstream, in the weeks following the judgment, and not at the time of the claim. The three most frequent causes of loss are identifiable: the absence of notification of the order to the prefecture, which suspends the periods and makes the requisition premature; the absence of a record of the attempt and of a condition-of-premises record, which leaves the damage heads of claim without proof; and passive waiting, which lets the four-year limitation period run on the first annual instalments.

The operational recommendation is simple. From service of the eviction judgment, open a dated tracking line with six steps: service, order, notification to the prefect, attempt, requisition with acknowledgment of receipt, expiry of the two-month period. File a quantified prior compensation request within the month following the last step, then update it every six months for as long as the occupation continues. For a commercial asset, build the economic loss file in parallel before any requisition: this is the only way to assert anything other than an occupation indemnity when the State quantifies its debt.

Frequently asked questions

What is the exact time limit for obtaining police assistance after a request to the prefect? The requisition is sent to the prefect by the commissaire de justice. Article R. 153-1 of the CPCE attaches to silence kept for two months the value of a decision of refusal, derogating from the principle that silence amounts to acceptance under Article L. 231-1 of the French Code on Relations between the Public and the Administration. After that period, the refusal is legally established and the compensable loss begins to run. The date on which the prefecture received the requisition must therefore be established with certainty.

Is the two-month period following the order to vacate compensable by the State? No. The two-month period under Article L. 412-1 of the CPCE is a general statutory burden on all landlords. It has neither the abnormal nor the special character on which the State's strict liability is founded. The same reasoning applies to the winter truce under Article L. 412-6 and to judicial periods of grace, which must be neutralised from the outset when the compensation statement of account is prepared.

Do commercial premises benefit from the winter truce and the two-month period? Exclusively commercial premises are not used for residential purposes and in principle fall outside the protections of Articles L. 412-1 and L. 412-6 of the CPCE. Eviction may therefore be pursued all year round and without any additional period after the order to vacate. The position differs for mixed-use premises in which the tenant or the tenant's family actually reside, a situation that reactivates these protections and must be checked before any attempt.

What supporting documents must be produced in support of a compensation claim against the State? The file comprises the eviction judgment and its service, the order to vacate, proof of the notification to the prefect required by Article L. 412-5 of the CPCE, the record of the eviction attempt, the requisition of police assistance with its acknowledgment of receipt, and a detailed monthly statement of the occupation indemnity and service charges. To these are added, depending on the heads of claim, the records of the condition of the premises, replacement leases and the documents establishing the economic loss.

Within what period is the claim against the State time-barred? The four-year limitation period under Law No. 68-1250 of 31 December 1968 applies: claims are time-barred four years after the first day of the year following that in which the rights were acquired. Since the loss linked to the refusal of assistance is continuing, each annual fraction has its own starting point. A prolonged occupation without any claim therefore leads to the progressive loss of the oldest periods, hence the value of filing a request as soon as the refusal is established and then updating it regularly.

Can the occupation indemnity claimed from the State be combined with the claim against the occupier? No, not for the same period and the same amount. The State compensates only the net loss: sums actually collected from the occupier, a guarantor or an unpaid rent insurer are deducted from the base. The enforceable title against the occupier remains and can still be used, but any later recovery must be brought to the administration's attention. A statement of account without adjustment exposes the claimant to a reduction and weakens the credibility of the whole claim.

Is an appeal against the refusal decision useful in addition to the compensation action? The action for misuse of power against the refusal, within two months, and the summary applications under Articles L. 521-1 and L. 521-2 of the French Code of Administrative Justice remain open. Their effect is mainly tactical: they document the default and put pressure on the prefecture. Annulment of a refusal does not, however, guarantee that assistance is actually granted, so that the full-jurisdiction compensation route remains, in most cases, the most effective lever.