Commercial Leases/Business Goodwill

Under the terms of Article 1719, 3° of the Civil Code, the lessor is obliged, by the nature of the lease contract, and without the need for any specific stipulation, to ensure the lessee peaceful enjoyment of the leased premises for the duration of the lease. This obligation ceases only in the event of force majeure . The loss of the property must be considered total when the lessee can neither en …

Peaceful enjoyment

Under the terms of Article 1719, 3° of the Civil Code, the lessor is obliged, by the nature of the lease contract, and without the need for any specific stipulation, to ensure the lessee peaceful enjoyment of the leased premises for the duration of the lease. This obligation ceases only in the event of force majeure . The loss of the property must be considered total when the lessee can neither enjoy nor use it according to its intended purpose . During the execution of the lease, a lessor cannot destroy the leased premises, even if they are unoccupied by the lessee and the latter does not justify the payment of the last rents . The latter is entitled to request the lessor to rebuild the building that was demolished, after noting the necessity to take emergency measures to safeguard the enclosure and the roof .

The enjoyment of a leased item is, in principle, of an exclusive nature unless proven otherwise. This is the case for the enjoyment of parking spaces, in the absence of contrary stipulations, indicating that the enjoyment of the parking spaces is shared with other occupants of the building . The obligation to guarantee the peaceful enjoyment of the leased item does not, in principle, concern the common areas of the building, the maintenance of which falls under the condominium. However, the lessor must have the condominium take urgent and appropriate measures to stop the disturbance to this enjoyment, and the lessor is liable if they do not demonstrate having done everything possible to achieve this .

A landlord fails in their obligation to ensure the tenant's peaceful enjoyment of the leased premises when the damage caused to the tenant results from the collapse of the vault supporting the leased premises, due to its original fragility, exacerbated by water leaks from premises operated by a third-party company affecting the building's structure , or when, due to an explosion, a bakery has been damaged, resulting in the tenant's inability to use the leased premises according to the purpose provided in the lease , or when the tenant chooses to vacate the premises during the asbestos removal work on the roof of the leased premises initiated by the landlord without being compelled by an administrative decision .

On the other hand, no disturbance of enjoyment attributable to the landlord is demonstrated when it is not justified that the state of the roof requires a complete renovation, but it is noted that there is a total lack of maintenance of this roof by the tenant , or when a landlord has blocked access to unoccupied buildings by the tenants by installing a padlock and a fence, which housed birds that damaged the interior . Similarly, when, far from being deprived against their will of the leased premises, the tenant has only endured the inconveniences of the expansion and renovation works of the premises, which they themselves deemed necessary and approved, and whether consented to or imposed, such works fall within the scope of the lease contract, which stipulates that the tenant undertakes to endure without compensation, regardless of the duration, all necessary transformations agreed with the landlord, the latter cannot be blamed for a disturbance of enjoyment .

If the enforcement of measures ordered in summary proceedings to cease a manifestly unlawful disturbance is not exclusive of the compensation for the damage that this disturbance may have caused , it being specified that the reality of the disturbance of enjoyment must be assessed by the trial court judges at the date on which they rule and not at the date of the contested decision , the lost profit due to the impossibility of operating the leased premises constitutes a distinct damage from that resulting from their deprivation of enjoyment . A tenant company must thus demonstrate that it has suffered personal damage, distinct from that which its employees may have personally suffered .

The guarantee of peaceful enjoyment entails several obligations for the lessor: the warranty against hidden defects, the warranty of eviction, and, when stipulated in the lease, the exclusivity guarantee concerning the tenant's activity.

Cass. 3e civ., 18 June 2002, LawLex202100003258JBJ. Also see Cass. 3e civ., 23 November 2011, LawLex202100005553JBJ. 

Cass. 3e civ., 7 March 2007, LawLex202100004582JBJ. 

Cass. 3e civ., 20 April 2005, LawLex202100005548JBJ.

Cass. 3e civ., 16 May 2007, LawLex202100004035JBJ.

Cass. 3e civ., 14 January 2016, LawLex202200006417JBJ.

CA Nîmes, 4 February 2003, No 660/02, in this case, the referral to the court by the lessee became moot due to the removal by the lessor of all the bollards and walls whose removal was ordered by the summary proceedings judge to restore the premises to their original state.

Cass. 3e civ., 6 September 2018, LawLex202200010369JBJ.

CA Paris, 29 May 2024, LawLex202400004012JBJ.

Cass. 3e civ., 9 March 1994, LawLex202200009933JBJ. 

Cass. 3e civ., 25 January 2006, LawLex202100004033JBJ. 

CA Bordeaux, 9 March 2022, LawLex202200006321JBJ, in this case, the parking lot was not described in the lease as a common area of the leased building, unlike the previous lease.

Cass. 3e civ., 9 February 2010, LawLex202100005550JBJ. 

Cass. 3e civ., 16 April 2008, LawLex202100005562JBJ.

Cass. 3e civ., 21 November 1990, LawLex202100004521JBJ.

Cass. 3e civ., 19 November 2015, LawLex202100004538JBJ, in this case, the lessee rightly raised the defense of non-performance by not paying the rent following his evacuation from the leased premises, as it was found that the labor inspector indicated in a letter addressed to the lessee that the risk of asbestos propagation had not been eliminated for the employees.

Cass. 3e civ., 10 January 1995, LawLex202100004018JBJ.

Commercial Leases/Business Goodwill

101. Peaceful enjoyment

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101. Peaceful enjoyment

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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