In the French courts, many disputes between traders and their lessors had been put on hold pending the Court’s case law.
Article written by
Posted
Update
Reading time : 1 min.
Pandemic or not, rents don’t wait. The Court of Cassation rejected, Thursday, June 30, the appeal of several traders who claimed a discount on their rents after having been forced to close during the confinement decreed in the spring of 2020 to stem the Covid-19 pandemic. In three judgments, the highest court of the judiciary ordered these merchants to pay their unpaid rent during the period when non-essential businesses were closed.
She judges that the ban, with exceptions, on leaving home decreed to stem the spread of Covid, “general and temporary measure”is not attributable to the lessors and has not permanently deprived the merchants of using their premises.
This decision will have important consequences. In the French courts, many disputes between traders and their lessors had been put on hold pending the Court’s case law. She had selected three files out of the thirty comparables that had been sent to her: those of a chain of low-cost stores, a Bordeaux real estate agency and a tourist residence.
“It’s a disappointing decision for the takers [les locataires], who will now consider how to engage the responsibility of the State”reacted to AFP Guillaume Hannotin, lawyer for the discount store chain Action.