If the rented accommodation is smaller than expected, a rent reduction can be obtained but there are strict deadlines for claiming.
Justice can be seized by the tenant who would not have obtained this reduction but within a period of four months only from the claim to the owner, underlined the Court of Cassation.
This is a time limit that cannot be suspended or interrupted, the judges said, and must therefore be strictly adhered to.
The Court of Cassation was seized by a tenant to whom the owner had not responded when he had claimed a reduction in his rent after noting that the area rented was less than 5% that indicated in the lease.
But justice was seized more than five months after the first request made to the owner, observed the Court, and the summons was therefore inadmissible.
The tenant maintained that the discussions with the landlord, during these five months, had logically led to a suspension of this limitation period. But it is a foreclosure period and not a limitation period, the judges replied, the difference as long as the first is not subject to suspension or an interruption which would prolong it by restarting it for a new period. .
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(Cass. Civ 3, 9.11.2022, S 21-19.212).
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