A SAFER (société d’aménagement foncier et d’établissement rural, the regional land agency with a statutory right of pre-emption over farmland) pre-empts a plot of vines. It notifies its decision to the notary and to the evicted buyer within the fifteen-day period, but the letter to the buyer comes back: the address supplied by the notary was wrong. The SAFER sends its decision again, twenty days after the first letter, to the corrected address. The Court of Appeal annuls the pre-emption for late notice. On 19 March 2026 the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters) quashed that judgment, in a published decision: the fifteen days run only from the day the SAFER receives from the notary a complete and accurate notification of the buyer’s name and address. Together with the decision of 9 July 2026 commented on here in September, the Court draws the two sides of one rule: notice to the evicted buyer is an essential formality, and the notary supplies its substance.
The facts
A notary informs the SAFER of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté of the sale of a plot of vines to a couple. By two letters of 9 December 2020, one to the notary and one to the buyers at the address given in the document sent by the notary, the SAFER declares that it exercises its right of pre-emption. The letter to the buyers comes back marked “no access or addressing”. The SAFER then notifies them of its decision by a letter of 29 December 2020, received on 30 December, at the new address supplied by the notary.
The buyers sue the SAFER for annulment of the pre-emption decision. The Paris Court of Appeal, on 11 October 2024, finds for them: the SAFER having notified its decision to the notary on 9 December 2020, it had to notify the evicted buyers, on pain of automatic nullity, within fifteen days of that date; it does not matter that the notary had supplied a wrong address, since the first notification does not exist.
The decision
The third civil chamber quashed the judgment (Cass. 3e civ., 19 March 2026, no. 24-22.301, published in the Bulletin), on a ground raised of its own motion, under articles L. 143-3, R. 141-2-1 and R. 143-6 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code.
It recalled the three provisions: the SAFER must, on pain of nullity, give reasons for its pre-emption decision by reference to the objectives of article L. 143-2 “and bring it to the knowledge of the persons concerned”; the notary informs the SAFER, two months before the intended date of the transfer, of “the surname, first names, date of birth, domicile and occupation of the parties to the deed of transfer”; the pre-emption decision “is also notified to the evicted buyer, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, within fifteen days from the date of receipt of the notification made to the notary”.
It then stated the rule: “Notification by a SAFER, to the evicted buyer, of the reasoned pre-emption decision is an essential formality whose omission is sanctioned by automatic nullity. It follows that the fifteen-day period given to the SAFER to inform the evicted buyer, on pain of automatic nullity of the pre-emption decision, begins to run only from the day on which it receives from the notary, under article R. 141-2-1 above, a complete and accurate notification of the surname, first names and domicile of the evicted buyer.”
The Court of Appeal, which had noted that the SAFER proved a wrong address supplied by the notary and a fresh notification made within fifteen days of receiving the exact address, “did not draw the legal consequences of its own findings”. The case is remitted to the Paris Court of Appeal, differently composed.
What this changes for valuation
Two decisions, one formality. On 9 July 2026 the Court held that a letter sent to an incomplete address is not a notification and that the six-month time limit for challenging the decision does not run against the evicted buyer. On 19 March 2026 it holds that the SAFER’s fifteen days do not run until the notary has given it an exact address. Both rules protect the same thing: effective information of the evicted buyer. They also shift the sensitive point of the file to the notary’s declaration of intent to sell, whose content now conditions the validity of the time limits on both sides.
For the evicted buyer, the question becomes the price. A valid pre-emption deprives the buyer of a plot negotiated at a price. If the SAFER pre-empts at the sale price, the buyer loses the deal; if the buyer then challenges the decision on the merits, a loss must be shown, and that loss is measured by the gap between the agreed price and the market value of the plot at the date of sale, plus the costs incurred. A report that establishes that value with sales of vines of the same appellation, classification and period, separating the bare land from the plantings, gives the discussion a basis, whether or not the pre-emption is annulled.
For the seller, the price revision. The SAFER may also pre-empt while offering a lower price, when it considers the agreed price excessive compared with prices in the region for comparable property; the seller may then withdraw the property from sale or ask the court to fix the price. The file turns on references: sales of land and vines of the same kind in the area, the indicative scales of farmland market values published each year, the condition of the plantings, planting rights, current leases. That is the subject of the article on price revision and withdrawal, linked below.
For the notary and the parties, an accurate declaration. The decision makes the notary’s notification the starting point of the period. For a valuer working upstream of a sale of rural property, this means that the agreed value, the declared make-up of the property and the identity of the parties must be consistent from the declaration onwards: a poorly justified price invites a revision, a poorly described property distorts the comparison, a wrong address shifts the time limits.
Land, vines and buildings are not worth the same. A plot of vines is valued with sales of vines of the appellation, not with the neighbouring arable land; a farm building, a winegrower’s house or a building plot on the edge of the village call for other references. The valuation assignment breaks the property into homogeneous elements, cites the comparables for each, then rebuilds the overall value.
What the valuer takes from it
- The SAFER’s fifteen days to notify the evicted buyer run from receipt of a complete and exact address supplied by the notary.
- With the decision of 9 July 2026, notice to the evicted buyer is an essential formality both ways: neither the SAFER’s time limit nor the buyer’s time to challenge runs without it.
- The evicted buyer’s loss is measured by the gap between the agreed price and market value at the date of sale, plus costs.
- A pre-emption with a price revision is argued on references of sales of comparable property and on the exact make-up of the property.
- Vines, land, buildings and building plots are each valued with their own comparables.
Further reading
The Compulsory purchase and pre-emption page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The glossary entry droit de préemption and the guide Public bodies and pre-emption: setting a defensible price complement this article. On the same theme: SAFER pre-emption: no notice, no time limit to challenge and SAFER: price revision and withdrawal from the sale. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
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