When a French municipality or a public land agency exercises its right of pre-emption (préemption, the right of a public body to step into a sale and buy the property in place of the intended buyer) and the seller refuses the price offered, it is the expropriation judge who sets the price. At what date, and in what condition, must the property be valued? Two rulings handed down in 2025 give useful answers. The first concerns the condition of the property and the state of the common parts of a co-owned building. The second concerns the arithmetical rigour expected of a decision fixing a price.
The legal framework
Article L. 213-4 of the French Planning Code (Code de l’urbanisme) provides that, failing an amicable agreement, the purchase price of a pre-empted property, exclusive of any ancillary compensation, is fixed according to the rules applicable to compulsory purchase (expropriation). Article L. 322-1 of the Expropriation Code provides that the judge fixes compensation according to the condition and composition of the property (its consistance) at the date of the order transferring ownership. For pre-emption, the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil and commercial matters) transposes this rule: the condition of the property is assessed at the date of the first-instance judgment.
First ruling: common parts count, even if the ZAD caused their decay
The owner of a lot in a co-owned building located in a zone d’aménagement différé (ZAD, a deferred development zone in which a public body holds a long-term pre-emption right over every sale) had served a declaration of intention to sell. The public land agency, to which the pre-emption right had been delegated, exercised it and then applied to the expropriation judge, as no agreement on the price could be reached. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal refused to take into account the run-down state of the common parts, because that state resulted from the halt of all maintenance works after the zone was created, and not from any failing on the part of the owner.
The Cour de cassation quashed that decision (Cass. 3e civ., 3 April 2025, appeal no. 23-23.206, reported decision): “the price of the pre-empted property, which must be fixed according to its condition at the date of the first-instance judgment, takes into account, for property located in a co-owned building, the state of the private parts and of the common parts, even if the deterioration of the latter results from the halt of all renovation and maintenance works after the creation of the deferred development zone” (translated from the French).
The rule is hard on the owner, but it is consistent. The price is that of the property as it stands, and a buyer would pay less for a flat whose staircase and roof need redoing. The cause of the deterioration plays no part in the calculation of the price, even if it may, where appropriate, support a separate claim.
Second ruling: a price must be consistent from start to finish
In another pre-emption case brought by the same public land agency, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal had fixed the price of a property at €4,868,170. Its reasons valued the house, the outbuildings and the land separately, at €753,700, €337,710 and €3,729,600, which adds up to €4,821,010. Another passage of the reasons retained €3,776,760. And the land was counted at €160 per square metre over 23,310 square metres, whereas the first-instance judge had applied €156 over 24,210 square metres.
The Cour de cassation quashed the decision (Cass. 3e civ., 25 September 2025, appeal no. 24-10.351): every judgment must state its reasons, and “contradictory reasons amount to an absence of reasons” (translated from the French), under article 455 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The price will be fixed again by the Nîmes Court of Appeal.
What the expert takes from it
The date and the condition are set by the law, not by the file. For a pre-empted property, the report values the property as it stands at the date of the first-instance judgment, with the actual state of the private parts and of the common parts at that date: minutes of general meetings of the co-owners, surveys and certificates, quotes for works voted or postponed, dated photographs. A property in a deferred development zone is often in a building where works have stopped. The report documents this and quantifies its effect on the price.
Actual use and the reference date remain those of compulsory purchase. The rules of article L. 322-2 of the Expropriation Code apply: the classification of the property is assessed at the reference date, and changes in value caused by the announcement of the project are disregarded. The Charte de l’expertise en évaluation immobilière (the French property valuation charter) devotes a paragraph to compulsory purchase compensation (6th edition, November 2025, Title III, § 1.20) and requires the assumptions of the report to be set out in writing (Title I, § 2.2).
The calculation must add up. The ruling of 25 September 2025 sanctions a court decision, but the lesson applies to the report as well: one area, one unit price, one sum, one total, and nothing that contradicts itself from one page to the next. The written submissions of the expropriated or pre-empted owner are all the more useful to the judge when they give a closed calculation, reference by reference.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the instruction before the expropriation judge, its timescale and its fee. On the same theme: Compulsory purchase in France: three recent Cassation rulings. The rulings are available on Légifrance: 3 April 2025 and 25 September 2025.
What next
A local authority or public land agency is pre-empting your property below your price?
I quantify the price under compulsory purchase rules, at the date and in the condition the law requires, with verifiable references and a calculation the judge can follow line by line.
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