An owner is expropriated for the benefit of a public land agency. The plots are not put to the use stated in the declaration of public utility. His guardian sues the acquiring authority for retrocession (rétrocession, the former owner’s right to buy back expropriated property that was never used as planned); the right is recognised, but retrocession has become impossible, and the dispute moves on to damages. Over what period is the added value the former owner was deprived of to be measured, and over what period his loss of enjoyment? The Caen court of appeal takes the interval between the summons for retrocession and the ruling that recognised the right; the former owner wanted to start from the expropriation and run to the day the judge rules. On 10 July 2025 the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters), in a reported decision, sides with the court of appeal: both heads of loss “run from the date of the summons for retrocession to the day the right of retrocession was definitively recognised”. For the valuer, the assignment narrows to two precise dates, and the current value of the property is not among them.
The facts
Property was expropriated for the benefit of the public land agency of Normandy. It was not put to the use provided for by the declaration of public utility. The family associations union of Calvados, as guardian of the expropriated owner, sued the agency on 28 November 2012 for retrocession. The right of retrocession was definitively recognised by a ruling of 3 October 2017. Return of the plots having become impossible, the guardian claimed compensation for lost added value and for loss of enjoyment.
The Caen court of appeal, on 28 November 2023, set the lost added value at the difference in value of the plots between 28 November 2012 and 3 October 2017, and computed the loss of enjoyment over the same period. The former owner appealed: in his view the owner deprived of retrocession must receive the current value of the property, less the dispossession indemnity already received plus interest, and the judge must assess the loss at the date of the ruling; as for enjoyment, the triggering event was the deprivation of ownership itself, and the disturbance did not end when the right was recognised.
The decision
The third civil chamber dismissed the appeal (Cass. 3e civ., 10 July 2025, no. 24-10.964, reported). It first recalled, under article L. 421-1 of the Expropriation Code, that retrocession is the option to buy back the property “having regard to its classification at the date the right of retrocession was recognised, at the price estimated at the date of the first-instance decision ruling on the price of the property returned”, that it “is not a rescission of the transfer of ownership effected by expropriation, but a new sale operating without retroactive effect”, and that “the impossibility of retrocession of the expropriated property is resolved in damages”.
From that it drew the rule for lost added value: “retrocession being only an option, with no bearing on the validity of the expropriation, the starting point of the period of loss is not the date the property was expropriated, but that of the summons for retrocession, which constitutes the formal notice to the acquiring authority to return the property to the former owner”; and “retrocession, where possible, requiring the former owner to buy back the property at its value resulting from its classification at the date the right of retrocession was definitively recognised, that date constitutes, where retrocession is impossible, the end of the period of loss”. The court of appeal therefore “correctly set” the lost added value “at the difference in value of the plots between 28 November 2012, date of the summons for retrocession, and 3 October 2017, date of recognition of that right”. Loss of enjoyment follows the same bounds: it “runs from the date of the summons for retrocession […] to the day the right of retrocession was definitively recognised”. Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention is not breached.
What this changes for valuation
Two dates, not a current value. The former owner asked for the value of the property at the date of judgment, less the indemnity received. The Court rejects that reasoning: retrocession does not undo the expropriation, it would have been a new sale at the price of the day the right was recognised. What the former owner lost is the difference between what he would have paid to buy back and what the property was worth when he gave the authority formal notice. The valuer therefore establishes two market values, at the date of the summons and at the date of definitive recognition of the right, each in the planning classification and with the market references of its time. Today’s value, even far higher, is not part of the assignment.
The classification of the property at each date. Retrocession takes place “having regard to its classification at the date the right of retrocession was recognised”. If the plots became buildable between the summons and the recognition, or if services were brought in, the difference in value includes that change; if it came after the recognition, it no longer counts. The report therefore documents, for each of the two dates, the zoning, the access to services and the state of the market, with the planning documents in force at the time. The guide for a public body exercising pre-emption describes the same dating requirement for the price.
Enjoyment over the same period. Loss of enjoyment is counted neither from the expropriation order, already compensated by the dispossession indemnity, nor up to the judgment. It is quantified between the same two dates, from the rental value of the plots or the income they would have produced, year by year. For farmland, that means the reference farm rents; for land that has become buildable, the lost enjoyment can be harder to express, and the valuer explains the reasoning adopted.
An update to an earlier article. The article on the three compulsory purchase rulings of spring 2026 referred, for a land reserve, to added value measured between the expropriation and today. The present ruling sets narrower bounds, and that article has been supplemented accordingly: the starting point is the summons for retrocession, the end point the definitive recognition of the right.
The dispossession indemnity stays where it is. Retrocession “does not affect the indemnity paid to the expropriated owner”. The report does not recompute the original expropriation indemnity and does not deduct it from the current value; it quantifies a separate loss, over a separate period. The two computations do not mix, and the valuer says so expressly to avoid double counting or an omission.
What the valuer takes from it
- When retrocession is impossible, lost added value is the difference in value of the property between the date of the summons for retrocession and the date of definitive recognition of the right.
- Loss of enjoyment is computed over the same period, neither before nor after.
- The current value of the property at the date of judgment plays no part in the computation.
- Each value is set in the planning classification and with the market references of its date.
- The dispossession indemnity already received is neither recomputed nor deducted: the two losses are distinct.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The guide Public bodies: pre-emption, setting a defensible price and the glossary entries expropriation, date de valeur and perte de jouissance complement this article. On the same theme: Compulsory purchase: ordered works, common parts, land reserve and Compulsory purchase: completed works and cellars in the indemnity. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
Expropriated property never put to its intended use, a retrocession refused or become impossible, and a loss to quantify?
I establish the value of the property at the two dates set by the Cour de cassation, with the references and the zoning of each period, and quantify the lost enjoyment over the same period, in a report usable before the judge.
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