An owner whose land is frozen by a reserved-site designation forces the municipality (commune) to buy it; years later, the municipality makes it buildable and resells it for far more. A decision of 18 April 2019 allowed compensation for the lost added value; the open questions were which time limit applies and until when the municipality can rely on it. The reported decision of the Third Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters) of 10 June 2021 answers: the four-year limitation period for claims against public bodies (prescription quadriennale), to be raised before the first-instance court rules on the merits. For the valuer, the timeline of the case becomes part of the assignment.
The facts
Two owners of a plot placed in a reserved site (emplacement réservé) under the land-use plan (plan d’occupation des sols), for green spaces, served notice on the municipality to acquire it under the surrender procedure (délaissement, the owner’s right to require a public body to buy land it has reserved) then provided for by article L. 123-9 of the Planning Code (Code de l’urbanisme). Failing agreement, a judgment of 20 September 1982 ordered the transfer of ownership and a ruling of 8 November 1983 set the price at 800,000 francs, or €121,959.21. On 22 December 2008 the municipality resold the land, which it had meanwhile made buildable by changing the planning rules, to a private buyer for €5,320,000. A building permit was issued on 18 October 2011.
On 29 October 2013 the owners’ successor in title sued the municipality for damages. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal dismissed her claim on 28 September 2017. On 18 April 2019 (no. 18-11.414), the Cour de cassation quashed that decision, except on the admissibility of the successor’s action in that capacity, on the ground of the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, as the article on reserved land surrendered then resold as building land explains. On remittal, the Lyon Court of Appeal, on 19 November 2019, held the claim admissible and ordered the municipality to pay €4,907,014.58. According to the appeal, it treated the claim as a civil debt under the five-year limitation of article 2224 of the French Civil Code.
The municipality appealed, relying on the four-year limitation under Act no. 68-1250 of 31 December 1968, and arguing that the interference with property was not disproportionate since, it said, the land had been a public green space for twenty years, then a children’s playground from 2002 to 2008.
The decision
The Cour de cassation dismissed the appeal (Cass. 3e civ., 10 June 2021, appeal no. 19-25.037, reported).
On limitation, it started from article 7, paragraph 1, of the Act of 31 December 1968: “the four-year limitation must be raised before the court hearing the dispute at first instance has ruled on the merits” (translated from the French). It then characterised the claim: the damages claim, “arising from the deprivation of the added value generated by the resale of her plots, concerned a debt subject to the four-year limitation of article 1, paragraph 1, of the aforementioned Act”. On the nature of the time limit, the municipality was therefore right, and the Court of Appeal’s reasoning was “rightly criticised”. But “the municipality relied on the four-year limitation only before the court of appeal on remittal”: the action was admissible. With this purely legal ground, substituted for the Court of Appeal’s, the Court corrected the reasoning without changing the outcome.
On proportionality, the Court recalled that in 2019 it had already held the denial of any compensation to be an excessive interference with the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, “despite the very long period between the two deeds”. Hence its answer: “Since the Cour de cassation itself carried out a proportionality review, the ground of appeal, which seeks to call into question the proportionality review carried out superfluously by the court of appeal on remittal, is ineffective”. In other words, since the Cour de cassation had itself held the interference excessive in 2019, criticism of the review redone in Lyon, even if well founded, could not lead to a quashing. The two other grounds were dismissed without specific reasoning; the order to pay stands.
The decision does not say from which date the four-year period ran, nor whether the 2013 claim would have been time-barred had the municipality raised the limitation in time: the question no longer arose.
What this changes for valuation
A public debt, not a civil one. Lost added value claimed from a municipality falls under the Act of 31 December 1968: four years from the first day of the year following the year in which the rights were acquired. The date of acquisition of the rights, left open by the decision, is a question of law that the report does not decide; it supplies its elements: dates of the transfer, of the change in planning rules, of the resale and of the permit. For a close water catchment protection zone (périmètre de protection rapprochée), the Court ran the period, in 2025, from the first day of the year following the one in which the owners knew, or should have known, of the restrictions on use. That rule applies to that easement; the 2021 decision recalls, for any claim under the four-year rule, until when the limitation can be relied on. Neither fixes the starting point for lost added value after a surrender.
Timing matters as much as duration. Not raised before the first-instance judgment on the merits, the limitation can no longer be raised on appeal or after a quashing. Begun in 2013, the case ended in 2021 after two Cour de cassation decisions: the report must stay readable from court to court, with explicit valuation dates, comparables and indices.
Compensation settled in principle, amount still to be justified. The 2021 decision names the loss, “the deprivation of the added value generated by the resale”, and upholds the order to pay €4,907,014.58 without discussing how it was calculated. Since the Court sets no method, the report sets out and justifies its own: it reconstructs the value of the land at the transfer and at the resale, each under the planning rules and market evidence of its time, and names the index used to update the price received.
A legal basis to check first. Surrender, retrocession made impossible (rétrocession, buying back property not used as intended) after a compulsory purchase (expropriation), resale of pre-empted land: each has its own rules and valuation dates, which the article on reserved land surrendered then resold as building land sets side by side.
What the valuer takes from it
- Lost added value claimed from a municipality after a land surrender falls under the four-year limitation, not the five-year civil one.
- That limitation must be raised before the first-instance court rules on the merits; raised on remittal, it comes too late.
- The starting point of the period is not fixed: the report records the relevant dates without deciding the legal question.
- When the Cour de cassation has itself reviewed proportionality, the court on remittal need not redo it, and a ground attacking that superfluous review is ineffective.
- The decision upholds the amount awarded without setting a calculation method: the report sets out and justifies its own.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The guide Pre-emption by a public body in France: setting a defensible price and the glossary entries expropriation, date de valeur and valeur vénale complement this article. The principle of compensation is discussed in Reserved land surrendered then resold buildable: lost gain owed. On the same theme: Catchment protection zone: time runs from the known restriction and Retrocession impossible: added value between two dates. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
An added value to claim from a municipality after a land surrender, and a timeline to reconstruct?
I reconstruct the value of the land at the date of the transfer and at the date of the resale, under the planning rules of each period, and quantify the lost added value in a report that sets out the relevant dates of the case, for your lawyer and for the court.
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