The owner of a co-ownership lot (lot de copropriété) taken by compulsory purchase (expropriation) loses the private part and the share of common parts attached to it, land included. Should that share be compensated separately, on top of the price per square metre of the lot? On 9 April 2026, the Third Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters) approved a Court of Appeal that refused such a separate line, because its Carrez price per square metre already took account of the extent of the common parts. For the valuer, the question is not whether the common parts have a value, but where that value is counted.
The facts
A company’s lot in a building governed by the French co-ownership regime was expropriated on grounds of public utility, for the benefit of a development company. In a judgment of 21 March 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal fixed the dispossession compensation due to it. The Cour de cassation’s decision does not state the nature of the lot, its floor area or the amounts awarded.
The company argued that it also lost its share of the common parts, over which its rights allowed it to oppose any act of disposal, and that the co-owners’ association (syndicat des copropriétaires), against which the expropriation had not been pursued, had not been compensated on that account. The Court of Appeal refused separate compensation: according to its reasons as reproduced in the appeal, the land, included in the common parts, “has no intrinsic value and cannot be valued separately” (translated from the French, like all quotations here). On appeal to the Cour de cassation, the company relied on article L. 321-1 of the Code of Expropriation for Public Utility, under which compensation covers the whole of the direct, material and certain loss caused by the expropriation.
The decision
The Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal (Cass. 3e civ., 9 April 2026, appeal no. 24-16.638, unreported). The second to fourth limbs of the ground were dismissed without special reasoning (article 1014, paragraph 2, of the Code of Civil Procedure). On the first, the only one reasoned, its answer rests on two findings.
“First, the Court of Appeal noted that the floor area of the expropriated party’s private lot was assessed in Carrez-law square metres, to which the shares of common parts were attached.”
“Second, retaining the valuation method that appeared to it the most appropriate, it fixed, within its sovereign power, the price per square metre of the private lot taking into account the extent of the common parts.”
It concluded: “The ground of appeal is therefore unfounded.”
The Court does not adopt the Court of Appeal’s statement that the land had no intrinsic value: it rejects the complaint because the common parts were taken into account in the unit price of the lot. Nor does it say that a separate valuation of the share would always be excluded: the choice of method lies within the sovereign assessment of the trial courts (juges du fond), that is, the expropriation judge and the Court of Appeal, which the Cour de cassation does not review on this point, and this unreported decision approves a method in a given case rather than laying down a general rule.
The two compulsory purchase decisions of the same chamber dated 12 March 2026, on works carried out under a danger notice and on the added value of land frozen in a land reserve, are discussed separately.
What this changes for valuation
The lot is valued the way it sells. The French co-ownership law of 10 July 1965 makes a lot an inseparable whole of a private part and a share of the common parts. The market does not sell shares of common parts (tantièmes) on their own: the price of a lot pays for the private part and its share together. Dividing that price by the Carrez area (surface Carrez, the statutory measurement of the private part only) therefore builds the common parts into the unit price. This is what the first finding reflects by attaching the shares of common parts to the lot’s Carrez area, although the decision does not say which method the Court of Appeal used. The principal compensation (indemnité principale), which the Charte de l’expertise en évaluation immobilière (the French property valuation charter) wants as close as possible to the market value of the property in its state of occupation (6th edition, November 2025, Title III, §1.20), covers the whole lot.
The extent of the common parts goes through the unit price. Extensive land, grounds, parking or a mere staircase weigh differently. The second finding addresses that point: the price per square metre was fixed “taking into account the extent of the common parts”. The report shows this through comparables from buildings with similar common parts, or a quantified and explained adjustment to the reference price (Charte, Title III, ch. 2), which the judge can check.
A separate line would count twice. Where the lot is valued by comparison with sales of lots, adding a value for the share of land would count twice what the comparables already include. The same demand for consistency led the Court, on 30 January 2025, to quash a Court of Appeal that had found that cellars added value without any reason showing that the average price retained included it. The two decisions fit together: an element that adds to the value of the lot enters the compensation, once, and the decision must show where.
The condition of the common parts also counts, upwards or downwards. For a pre-empted lot, the Court held in 2025, in a reported decision, that the price takes account of the condition of the common parts, even when their decline results from maintenance stopping after a deferred development zone (ZAD) was created.
Selling common parts is a different question, covered in the article on valuing the common parts of a building: a fraction is then removed from the co-ownership, whereas an expropriated lot changes hands with its share.
The unit price is argued before the trial courts. An owner who considers its common parts poorly reflected quantifies the gap between its references and the acquiring authority’s. Sales drawn from public databases, which the judge may rely on without the deeds being produced provided they carry the particulars required by article R. 112 A-1 of the Tax Procedure Code (livre des procédures fiscales) and their publication references, do not describe the common parts: the report completes that description where it matters.
What the valuer takes from it
- An expropriated co-ownership lot is in principle valued the way it sells: private part and share of common parts together, at the Carrez price per square metre.
- The extent of the common parts is reflected in the unit price, through the choice of comparables or a quantified adjustment, not through a separate value that would count twice.
- The report describes the common parts of each reference, so that the judge can see where they are counted.
- The method lies within the sovereign assessment of the trial courts: this unreported decision approves one method without excluding others.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The guide Compulsory purchase of my business premises: what compensation? and the glossary entries surface Carrez, indemnité principale and méthode par comparaison complement this article. The two compulsory purchase decisions of 12 March 2026: Compulsory purchase: post-notice works held not speculative and Land reserve: no lost added value when the delay is justified. On the same theme: Compulsory purchase: completed works and cellars in the indemnity and Pre-emption price in France: run-down common parts count. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
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