Nancy Bouché was, until 2009, president of the national pole of fight against the habitat unworthy of the ministry of housing. Today, she advises local authorities on this subject.
Do you think that the decrees of danger, with emergency evacuation and prohibition to live multiply since the collapse of two buildings rue d’Aubagne, in Marseille, on November 5, 2018?
They are numerous – even if the statistics are lacking – for example in Bordeaux or in Seine-Saint-Denis, as if there were increased vigilance by the public authorities, town halls or prefectures, on this risk. There are also many objective situations of degraded buildings, which were not dealt with in time and which are urgently dealt with today.
Municipalities limit their rehousing obligation to tenants in title, denying this assistance to people housed without rental title or to undocumented migrants. Do they have the right?
No. All occupants, whether or not they have a lease – the verbal lease being recognized by the judges –, even with payment of the rent in cash, have the right to rehousing at the expense, first, of their lessor, then, s he is failing, from the city. The latter can then turn against the lessor and claim reimbursement of its costs, which it will recover as tax.
The occupants are deemed to be in good faith if they can prove their residence by any means – administrative mail, electricity receipt, address for the schooling of the children – as recalled, in particular, by a judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal of December 16, 2010, concerning occupants of a furnished hotel, confirming consistent case law of the Court of Cassation.
Moreover, it is not up to the municipality to qualify good faith or bad faith, only a judge can do so. And with regard to the regularity of the stay, it is not included in the concept of occupant in good faith, as constant case law reminds us since the same judgment of the Court of Appeal, confirmed by the Court of Cassation then the Constitutional Council, in 2016. These judgments evoke the very interesting notion of“social public order”, inherent in the obligation of rehousing which is totally independent of any consideration of the legality of the person’s stay in France, and is binding on the authorities. The Council of State reiterated this principle in a recent judgment, dated July 16, 2021, concerning Clichy-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine).
And the owner-occupiers?
They are not entitled to rehousing, which is, of course, a problem for the poorest, who do not have the means to renovate their homes. We can organize a legal arrangement with associations that carry out the work and rent under a long-term lease to allow them to stay in the premises.
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