A Parisian owner was able to rent his main residence for more than 120 days a year. He won his case in court against the Paris town hall. Explanations.
Renting your main residence for more than 120 days a year on Airbnb is completely legal… under certain conditions. In a judgment rendered on May 22 and spotted by Le Figaro, the Paris judicial court came to remind Paris town hall, with an unprecedented decision recognizing for the first time a case of force majeure.
A Parisian owner had rented his main residence for 200 nights in 2019, 187 nights in 2020 and 273 nights in 2021. He had been sued by the city of Paris which considered that he had exceeded the legal ceiling of 120 days of rental by year for main residences. But this owner won his case.
How to explain it? If we refer to article L324-1-1 of the Tourism Code, seasonal rental on platforms such as Airbnb and Abritel is in fact strictly regulated. It is therefore, in principle, prohibited to rent your main residence for more than 120 days per year. But there are actually several exceptions.
Already, this limit of 120 days per year does not apply to all municipalities. In fact, for this to happen, the town hall must have put in place, for main residences, a prior declaration procedure for the furnished property. And the municipality can only do this if “the change of use of premises intended for housing is subject to prior authorization”.
In other words, if a municipality has not implemented these control tools, the 120-day limit does not apply. But in the judgment that interests us today, the city of Paris has put these systems in place for a long time.
The pandemic as force majeure
We must therefore look at the other exceptions contained in the Tourism Code. However, the law clearly specifies that the rental of the main residence is limited to 120 days per year, “except for professional obligations, reasons of health or cases of force majeure”.
Justice had already recognized the first two exceptions (“professional obligation” and “health reasons”) in other cases. But this is the first time that it has recognized a case of force majeure in a judgment.
Indeed, the owner attacked by the city of Paris “argued that his professional obligations required him to have a regular presence in Asia and that subsequently, the measures taken by France and China as part of the fight against the pandemic linked to Covid-19, prevented him from returning to French territory”, underlines the judgment. The owner was able to produce evidence demonstrating that his stays abroad were linked to his employment contract and his professional obligations.
The court thus recognized the professional reason and the case of force majeure in the case of this owner, who was therefore within his rights in exceeding the limit of 120 days per year.
“The exception relating to a case of force majeure means a situation in which the lessor cannot physically occupy the rental property due to an irresistible and unforeseeable event,” specifies the judgment.
The Paris judicial court therefore dismissed the Paris town hall and ordered the city to pay 2,500 euros to the owner, for its legal costs.
Finally, owners will note that there is one last exception to the limit of 120 days per year for their main residence: you are not subject to this limit if you only rent a room in your main residence and you are present during the rental.
