He thinks he has given leave to his owner … but finds himself with 6 months of rent to pay

Tenants, be careful to respect the rules to give your owner leave! Otherwise you risk very unpleasant surprises.

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You have just won a credit To buy your house, you are able to give your notice departure to the owner of the apartment you were tenant ! There registered letter With request for acknowledgment of receipt filed at La Poste and proof of warm deposit in your portfolio, you estimate yourself quiet to move in a month, or three if you live in an unattained zone, where there are about as many accommodation offers as requests. You are wrong. Proof with a decision rendered on May 7 by the Court of Cassationspotted by the Adonis law firm. It concerns a tenant who had sent his lessor, on May 24, 2019, a registered letter with request for acknowledgment of receipt, to signify his departure in a month.

The letter returned to the tenant’s home with the mention “wise and not claimed fold”, indicating that The lessor did not recover it at La Poste. The tenant did not worry, convinced that proof of deposit of his registered mail, that La Poste had provided him, triggered his notice. He therefore left the scene at the end of June, as planned, to move into his house. But six months later, contesting the validity of the leave, The owner assigns him to justiceclaiming him … The rents for the period from the end of June to the end of December.

You risk buying your new home more dear with new steel taxes

The notice must be actually received

On the contrary, the tenant considers to have given his notice in the rules. The judges proved him right, on the grounds that the lessor was at his home during the period of withdrawal from the registered letter and that he could perfectly come to pick her up. But the Court of Cassation has just censored this decision, invoking article 15.I of the Law of July 6, 1989according to which only three terms are valid to notify rental leave: a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt “Indeed received”a service by an act of bailiff or the delivery of the notice against receipt against receipt or evolving on the part of the lessor.

The High Court estimates that, because it has not been actually received by the owner, registered with request for acknowledgment of receipt “Cannot run the notice period”. In other words, Without knowing it, the tenant was still a tenant of the apartment, even six months after its move … a case law which confirms that “The rules for the rental leave are strict and do not suffer any approximation”, underlines the Adonis cabinet, recommending to tenants “a absolute prudence When you leave accommodation ”. At the risk, if not, of “Unpleasant surprises, like rents unduly due or long and expensive litigation”. Six months of rent to be paid suddenly, it’s tough, indeed …