While she was attacking her tenant to receive unpaid bills and obtain her eviction, an owner of an “attic room” in the 11th arrondissement of Paris was ordered to pay her more than 20,000 euros.
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A Parisian landlord was ordered to return years of rent to her tenant for illegal 5m2 housing and to pay him 2,000 euros in moral damages, while she was suing him for unpaid bills and obtaining his eviction. The owner will have to pay her tenant, aged 66 and still occupying the accommodation, the sum of 19,463 euros corresponding to four years of rent. “unduly paid”decided the Paris court in a judgment rendered on September 15, consulted by AFP on Friday September 30.
The landlord will also have to pay her tenant, who receives a disability pension, 2,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage due to the “findings reported in the prefectural decree reporting health risks”, said the judge. This “attic room” located in the 11th arrondissement has a floor area of 9 m2, but only 5 m2 with a ceiling height greater than 1.80 m, details a prefectural decree of January 18 after an investigation by the services of the City of Paris. The legal minimum is 9 m2, with a minimum height of 2.2 m.
“In addition to the small size of the premises making the premises unsuitable for habitation, the prefectural decree also notes the following unsanitary elements: absence of a permanent ventilation system, absence of means of heating, discharge of waste water into the shower during the use of the sink, degraded floor”underlines the court.
At the end of 2021, once the lease was terminated, the owner had taken the sexagenarian to court to obtain his eviction from the property she wanted to sell, as well as 4,800 euros in unpaid rent. But the tenant turned to the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, which sent to the services of the town hall the report which resulted in the prefectural decree. “It’s a victory”, rejoiced Samia Ayed, unfit housing project manager at the Foundation. But she is not “not total because the gentleman still lives in the accommodation, nothing obliges the lessor to relocate him”. “No proposal has been made to him to date”added the lawyer.