Here’s what you need to know.
Married couples
Whether you’re moving into your shiny rented marital love nest as a couple, or one half is moving into a property already rented by the other, you have the same rights and responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, this includes paying your rent.
In short, it’s the responsibility of both halves of a married couple to make sure it’s paid on time.
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Likewise, if you later decide to move out, you must send a joint notice letter to the owner or property management agency.
If, however, only one of you wants to move out because of divorce, the spouse that wants to leave must give notice to the owner or agency. Both parties remain jointly liable for rent payments and charges due until a divorce is noted on the civil status certificate.
In cases where both spouses are moving out as a result of divorce, they can either send a joint notice letter or individual ones.
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Note, however, that if one spouse leaves to escape domestic violence against them or against any child in their care, they can give one month’s notice – regardless of the standard notice period – by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. The reason for leaving (violence) must be stated and one of the following documents attached:
- a copy of a protection order issued by a family court judge;
- a copy of a criminal conviction for acts of violence that is less than six months old.
The violent spouse then becomes solely responsible for rent payments and other charges from the day after the registered letter is presented to the landlord.
If, during divorce proceedings, there is a dispute over who gets to stay in the rented home, a judge will have the final say.
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If one spouse dies, the surviving partner has an exclusive right to the lease, unless they then waive it by giving notice. This exclusive right further exists if one spouse suddenly leaves without notice, or if ill-health obliges them to move into care.
Exchanges of correspondence between the landlord or agent and just one of the spouses are not binding on the other – unless the landlord is unaware of the marriage at the time the letter is addressed to one of the spouses.
Civil partnership couples
The PACS (pacte civil de solidarité, or ‘civil union’) was introduced to France in 1999 as a way of giving couples similar rights and benefits to those given to married couples.
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It's become such an accepted part of the landscape that its acronym has become a word – pacsé, meaning people who have entered a civil union – ils sont pacsé = they are in a civil partnership.
You won’t be unduly surprised, then, to learn the rights and responsibilities of renting and terminating a rental agreement are broadly the same – including the bit about paying rent. It is, after all, why pacs status was introduced in the first place.
However pacsé couples have to inform their landlord, in writing, if they want to be formally considered joint tenants. The landlord cannot refuse this request, which becomes important if one of the pacsé tenants later dies. Only if they held joint tenancy will be surviving partner be eligible for exclusive rights to continue the tenancy.
For the entire duration of the civil partnership, when the owner or agency sends a letter (for example to give notice), they must address it to each of the partners . A letter addressed to only one partner has no value with regard to the other.
Cohabiting couples
When a couple lives together in a common-law relationship - known in French as concubinage - the rules relating to the accommodation that the partners live in together are different depending on whether only one of them signs the lease, or whether both partners do.
In general terms, if only one partner has signed the lease they are, legally, the sole tenant. The other partner has no right or title to the accommodation, even if they have decided together to share the payment of the rent.
Therefore, only the person who signed the lease is liable for the payment of rent and charges to the landlord. Unless the other has acted as the tenant’s guarantor, the landlord cannot chase them for payments.
The partner who has not signed the lease is able, then, to move out without having to inform the landlord. The partner who has signed the lease, however, must give appropriate notice.
If the partner who signed the lease dies, the surviving partner can obtain the transfer of the lease under certain conditions, namely, that cohabitation can be proved and was stable and known about, and that the couple had lived together for at least a year prior to the leaseholder’s death. The same rules apply if the leaseholding partner leaves the property suddenly and without notice.
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