A landlord was ordered, by a final decision, to pay its evicted tenants a reinvestment allowance (indemnité de remploi), a business disruption allowance (trouble commercial) and removal costs, as part of their eviction compensation (indemnité d’éviction, statutory compensation for a French commercial tenant whose lease is not renewed). The tenants did not relocate. Can the landlord recover those sums, when that decision can no longer be challenged? In a reported decision of 28 March 2019, the Third Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil and commercial matters) allows it: res judicata (autorité de la chose jugée) does not bar repayment where later events have altered the situation recognised by the court. For the valuer, the report must state the hypothesis on which each ancillary head rests.
The facts
The French commercial lease (bail commercial) of a couple of tenants was not renewed; their landlord was a property company (SCI, société civile immobilière, a French property-holding company). A final ruling of 17 June 2010, which the appeal attributes to the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, ordered the SCI to pay them various sums, including a reinvestment allowance, a business disruption allowance and an allowance for removal costs.
The tenants did not relocate. On that ground, the SCI sued them for repayment of those three allowances (répétition de l’indu, recovery of sums not due); they pleaded the res judicata attached to the 2010 ruling. The decision does not state the amounts at stake.
On 28 February 2017, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal granted the claim for repayment. According to the appeal, it held that the SCI had proved that the tenants had not set up again in a business and had no intention of doing so when they received payment.
The tenants appealed. In their view, recovery of sums not due, then governed by former article 1376 of the Civil Code, is excluded where the sums were paid in performance of a court decision that has become final; the SCI could only have acted if the 2010 ruling had been “eradicated from the legal order” (all quotations are translated from the French).
The decision
The Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal (Cass. 3e civ., 28 March 2019, appeal no. 17-17.501, reported). It answered with a general rule on the scope of res judicata: “res judicata cannot be relied upon where later events have altered the situation previously recognised by the court”.
It applied the rule at once: “having noted that, after the decision of 17 June 2010, Mr and Mrs Y. had not relocated, the court of appeal legally justified its decision”.
The answer cites no provision. It tempers res judicata (now article 1355 of the Civil Code, which the decision does not cite): what was decided was decided for the situation known to the judge, and a new fact, here the absence of relocation after 2010, reopens the discussion. The Court does not rule on the burden of proof, on the tenants’ intention on the day of payment, or on the period after which the absence of relocation can be taken as established. The principal compensation was not in issue: the SCI claimed only the three ancillary heads.
What this changes for valuation
Heads that presuppose a relocation. Article L. 145-14 of the Commercial Code (Code de commerce) adds to the market value of the business (fonds de commerce), where appropriate, the normal costs of removal and reinstallation and the transfer costs and duties payable for a business of the same value, which underlie the reinvestment allowance. The Charte de l’expertise en évaluation immobilière (the French property valuation charter, 6th edition, November 2025, Title III, §1.19) includes among the ancillary heads, in a non-exhaustive list, reinvestment, removal and reinstallation costs and business disruption, which covers the interruption of trading. These heads compensate the cost of resuming business elsewhere: acquiring a business, moving, getting through the transfer period. Without relocation, the expense does not arise. The decision does not detail their computation; it approves their repayment because no relocation took place.
Head-by-head figures. So that the part exposed to repayment can be isolated without reopening the whole account, the report sets out the principal compensation and each ancillary head separately, with the hypothesis behind it and the supporting documents: relocation plan, premises sought or found, removal quotes. As an illustration, compensation of €180,000 made up of €150,000 of principal compensation and €30,000 of reinvestment, disruption and removal allowances shows at once the €30,000 that an absence of relocation would expose to repayment.
Dated hypotheses. When the valuation follows the relocation, the ancillary heads rest on the costs actually incurred; when it comes first, they remain forecasts, which the 2019 decision allows to be revisited if the relocation does not happen. The report therefore dates its hypotheses and flags the heads that depend on a future event. For the landlord who paid, the valuer quantifies what corresponded to a relocation that did not take place; for the tenant, the relocation documents, new lease, deed of acquisition of a business, removal invoices, justify the sums kept.
A decision to read with those of 2021 and 2023. Two more recent decisions deal with the opposite case, a tenant who has relocated. On 13 October 2021 the Court held that the leasehold right (droit au bail) of the premises left must be valued even if the new rent is lower (Relocated for less, the leasehold right lost still has a value); in 2023, that it is for the landlord to show that the loss is lower than the market value of the business (the landlord must prove a lower loss). They decide other questions and do not call the 2019 decision into question: relocation is a matter of fact, and the heads that presuppose it follow its fate, without the value of what the tenant loses being assessed from the new rent alone. The article on a photo shop in a shopping centre illustrates the distinction between replacement compensation and relocation compensation.
In this case, the SCI that had paid sued the tenants. Where the building is under split ownership (démembrement between usufructuary and bare owner), the question of who owes the eviction compensation is settled by another reported decision of 2019, discussed separately: the usufructuary pays, not the bare owner. Neither decision deals with repaying the allowances where ownership is split.
What the valuer takes from it
- Reinvestment, business disruption and removal allowances compensate a relocation; if it does not happen, the sums paid may be repaid despite a final decision.
- Res judicata holds for the situation known to the judge: a later event, here the absence of relocation, reopens the account of the heads that depended on it.
- The report quantifies the principal compensation and each ancillary head separately, with the hypothesis and documents behind it, and dates those hypotheses.
- The decision sets neither a time limit for relocation nor a rule of proof: the valuer records the dated facts and leaves those questions to the judge.
- The repayment concerned only the three ancillary heads: the decision says nothing about the principal compensation.
Further reading
The Eviction compensation page describes the assignment, how it is carried out and its fee. The guide My landlord refuses to renew my commercial lease and the glossary entries indemnité d’éviction, indemnité de remploi and trouble commercial complement this article. The other reported decision of 2019, on who owes the compensation in a building under split ownership, is discussed separately: Eviction compensation: the usufructuary pays, not the bare owner. On the same theme: Relocated for less, the leasehold right lost still has a value and Eviction compensation in France: landlord must prove a lower loss. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
Ancillary allowances paid for a relocation that never happened?
I value the principal compensation and each ancillary head separately, stating the hypothesis behind each one, relocation or not, so that the part to repay or to keep can be read directly in the report.
Free quote, by email or by phone. No commitment before the quote is accepted. Fees are never linked to the value of the property (Charte de l’expertise, Title I, §2.1).
