A compulsory purchase by the Alpes-Maritimes department leaves the owners with plots that are now landlocked. The department offers a right-of-way agreement; the owners refuse it and claim an indemnity for depreciation of the remainder. The Court of Appeal refuses it, precisely because they refused the easement. On 13 November 2025 the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters) quashed that ruling: expropriation indemnities are fixed in euros, and the loss from depreciation of the remainder “may be repaired in kind only with their agreement”. The expropriated owner chooses; if the owner refuses repair in kind, the judge must put a figure on it.
The facts
Owners, individuals and property companies represented by their voluntary liquidator, are expropriated by the Alpes-Maritimes department. Part of their plots lies outside the taking but loses its access to the public road. As early as 2006 the Nîmes Court of Appeal, seised of a first phase of the dispute, had recalled that if the easement intended to give access to the remaining plots “should no longer have their agreement”, the owners would be entitled to ask the expropriation court to rule on the indemnity for depreciation of the remainder.
The owners refuse the perpetual easement agreement offered by the department. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, on 30 November 2023, rejects their claims for fencing and depreciation-of-remainder indemnities, on the ground that they refused to sign the agreement, and orders an expert’s report on the dispossession indemnities.
The decision
The third civil chamber quashed the judgment (Cass. 3e civ., 13 November 2025, no. 24-11.112), under articles L. 321-1 and L. 322-12 of the Code of Expropriation in the Public Interest. It first set aside the inadmissibility raised by the acquiring authority: the ground is one of pure law, and the owners had argued on appeal that “unless the department grants them a genuine right of way, it will owe at least a depreciation indemnity”.
On the merits: “Under the first of these provisions, the indemnities must cover the whole of the direct, material and certain loss caused by the expropriation. Under the second, the indemnities are fixed in euros. Under these provisions, the loss resulting from the depreciation of the remainder linked to the loss of the access to the public road which the expropriated owners enjoyed before the expropriation may be repaired in kind only with their agreement.”
By relying “on the acquiring authority’s undertaking to grant a right of way intended to repair in kind the loss suffered by the expropriated owners, who objected to it”, the Court of Appeal breached those provisions. The case is remitted to the Nîmes Court of Appeal on that point alone.
What this changes for valuation
Depreciation of the remainder is a head of loss in its own right. When the taking covers only part of a property, the principal indemnity pays for the land taken, and the depreciation of the remainder compensates the loss of value of the remaining plots caused by the expropriation: a less convenient shape, an area reduced below a building threshold, lost frontage, and here landlocking. The expropriation judge must compensate it in euros. A right of way offered by the acquiring authority is repair in kind; it is possible only with the owner’s agreement, and the owner remains free to prefer money.
What a landlocked plot is worth. The method is the difference: value of the remainder before the expropriation, with its access, and value after, without it. For farmland, landlocking reduces rental and market value; for building land it can remove the buildability itself, since a permit requires sufficient access. The report quantifies both values with comparables from the area and, as a check, the cost of restoring access: buying a strip of land, building a track, the indemnity a neighbour would demand for a statutory right of way under article 682 of the Civil Code.
The easement itself has a value. When the owner accepts repair in kind, the easement offered must be compared with the previous situation: width, route, maintenance, perpetual character, enforceability against future owners. If it restores a poorer access than the one lost, a residual depreciation remains and is quantified. Agreeing to an easement therefore does not exclude any indemnity; it reduces its base.
The claims to be made from the first submissions. The case also shows the importance of the pleadings: it is because the owners had asked for “at least a depreciation indemnity” on appeal that their ground was held admissible. In a partial expropriation file, the submissions quantify separately the land taken, the depreciation of the remainder, the fencing to be rebuilt and the reinvestment allowance, each head with its method.
The reference date. As for the principal indemnity, the make-up and use of the remainder are assessed at the reference date, and its value at the date of the first-instance decision. The report says so, because a remainder whose use has changed in the meantime is not valued as it was.
What the valuer takes from it
- Depreciation of the remainder linked to loss of access is compensated in euros; repair in kind through an easement requires the owner’s agreement.
- The method is the difference between the value of the remainder with access and its value without, checked against the cost of restoring access.
- An accepted easement is compared with the access lost; a residual depreciation remains compensable.
- Each head, land taken, remainder, fencing, reinvestment, is quantified separately in the submissions, with its method.
- Make-up at the reference date, value at the date of judgment: both dates appear in the report.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The glossary entries dépréciation du surplus and indemnité principale and the guide My business premises are compulsorily purchased complement this article. On the same theme: Right of way and enclosed land: one indemnity per dominant estate and Compulsory purchase: late submissions on appeal and the reinvestment allowance. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
Does the compulsory purchase cut off access to the rest of your land?
I quantify the depreciation of the remainder, the value of the remaining plots before and after the loss of access, with references from the area, for the discussion with the acquiring authority or before the expropriation judge.
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