Unpaid Rent in France: Step-by-Step Recovery Procedure for Landlords

The critical timeline: day 1 to day 90

Every day of silence weakens your file in front of a French judge. Stick to this sequence.

1. Day 1 — Friendly reminder. Rent didn't clear. A polite SMS, a phone call, or better, a dated email. Goal: rule out a forgotten transfer or a banking glitch. In about 60 % of cases the payment arrives within 48 hours.
2. Day 8 — Registered letter (LRAR). First formal written trace. It doesn't trigger a procedure yet, but it starts the clock and becomes the first piece of your file.
3. Day 15 — Formal notice (mise en demeure). A firmer registered letter giving a final deadline (usually 15 days) before legal action. Also the moment to activate Visale or your guarantor if you have one.
4. Day 30 — Bailiff's payment order (commandement de payer). An official act served by a commissaire de justice (formerly huissier). Cost: €100 to €200, recoverable from the tenant. Once served, a two-month delay starts before you can file for lease termination in court.
5. Day 90 — Court summons (assignation). If the payment order has produced nothing after two months, you take the case to the juge des contentieux de la protection. Hearing typically scheduled 2 to 4 months later.

Friendly reminder and registered letter

Plenty of landlords skip the written step because they "know" their tenant and prefer to call. Bad instinct. Without a dated written record, you have nothing to produce in court. The registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (LRAR) should be formal but courteous, with the exact amount due, the period concerned, the missed due date, and a clear deadline to pay.

Dear Mr / Ms [tenant],
Unless we are mistaken, the rent for [month/year], in the amount of €[amount], was not paid by the due date of [date].
We kindly ask you to settle this amount within eight days of receipt of this letter.
Failing payment, we will be obliged to engage the procedures provided for in your lease.
Yours sincerely,

Keep the dispatch slip and the signed acknowledgement. Together, those two pieces are valid evidence in any French court.

Formal notice and payment order

These two are often mixed up by foreign landlords. They are not the same thing, and the difference matters in court.

The mise en demeure is a registered letter you send yourself. It grants a final deadline (typically 15 days) and states that without payment, legal action will follow. Cost: just postage.

The commandement de payer is something else entirely. It's an official act served by a commissaire de justice at the tenant's home. Without this served document, no action to terminate the lease is admissible. It's also what triggers the two-month statutory delay before you can take the case to court. If your lease contains a "clause résolutoire" — and 99 % of French residential leases do — once that delay expires, the lease is automatically terminated as a matter of law.

Peter, a Dutch landlord with two studios in Toulouse, learned this the hard way. He had sent three registered letters but never had a payment order served. His first court filing was thrown out for inadmissibility. Three months gone.

How to prevent: levers to activate at lease signing

The best unpaid rent is the one that never happens. Five levers, ranked by impact.

Tracking payments in real time

Most late payments aren't malicious. A bank switch, a standing order that fails, a plain forgotten transfer. Without an automatic reminder system you only notice at month-end — sometimes the next one. With a property management software that watches inflows, you get an alert at D-3 (pre-due reminder), D+1 (first late), D+7 and D+15 (escalating reminders). The tenant also receives automatic notifications with the exact amount and IBAN.

Marie, a landlord with four units in Rennes, avoided €2,100 of legal procedure in 2024 thanks to an automatic D+3 reminder. Her tenant had simply forgotten — not refused. SMS sent in the morning, transfer received that evening.

For €7 per month, FacturZen monitors payments, issues automatic rent receipts the moment a transfer hits, and triggers escalating reminders without you lifting a finger. The day a file does tip into formal procedure, you have the full timestamped history ready to hand to the bailiff.

Conclusion: speed is your best asset

An unpaid rent dealt with on day 8 has an 80 % chance of settling out of court. The same one handled on day 45 needs a bailiff, a lawyer and several months of waiting. The difference isn't the tenant — it's your reaction time. Set up automatic monitoring today, keep your registered-letter templates ready, and never hesitate to bring in a commissaire de justice at the right moment.