The formal notice to pay, sent by an owner to his tenant who does not pay, has no real legal value and in particular does not interrupt the course of the prescription.
An owner who had waited too long before taking legal action therefore lost certain rents, observed the Court of Cassation, because his registered letters had no legal effect.
The owner of a rented machine blamed his tenant for not having paid for six years and demanded the full rent in addition to the termination of the lease. The tenant refused to pay more than five years of rent, the others being prescribed because they were too old. The owner then recalled that he had sent formal notices to the tenant and that these registered letters with acknowledgment of receipt had had the effect of interrupting the limitation period, that is to say relaunching it for 5 years each time.
But whatever the subject of the claim, the causes of interruption of a prescription are exhaustively enumerated by the civil code, observed the judges, and the formal notice is not one of them. Neither does the order to pay issued by bailiff. Only referral to the judge interrupts this period.
The interest of the formal notice is to notify precisely what is requested. The interest of the order to pay is to put pressure on the debtor.
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The owner of the object could therefore only obtain payment for the last five years of overdue rent.
In terms of housing, the 1989 law specifies that this limitation period is limited to three years.
(Cass. Civil 3, 18.5.2022, K 20-23.204).
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