Death of the tenant: what to do?

If you are the owner of a rental unit, it is possible that one day a tenant may die during the course of the lease. In this case, what should you do? How to react to the death of a tenant?

The rules differ according to the nature of the lease (furnished or unfurnished), and according to the existence or not of a surviving co-occupant and heirs. We will see successively the case of the death of a tenant holding an empty lease (law of 1989) by distinguishing the case where the tenant lived alone from the case where he did not live alone.
We will then see the case of furnished rentals, which differs.
Finally, we will deal with the particular case of the death of a tenant without heirs.

The case of the death of a tenant with an empty lease :

In the case of an empty rental (the most frequent case), it is necessary to check whether the tenant lived alone or not, as the rules are different.

The tenant living alone: 

In this first case, the law provides that the lease is terminated by operation of law immediately on the date of death. The heirs will simply be held responsible for the remaining rents and charges due by the tenant at the date of death, which will become a liability of the estate.

In practice, the heirs will have to notify the owner of the death and organise the removal of the deceased tenant's belongings. Most of the time, it is the notary in charge of the estate who will notify the owner.

In the event of delay in notifying the owner or delay in arranging the move, the heirs may be ordered to pay an occupancy allowance.

The case of the tenant not living alone: 

Article 14 of the Law of 6 July 1989 provides that the lease is automatically transferred to the spouse, cohabitant, partner of pacs, but also to the descendants and ascendants who had been living with him for at least one year before the date of death.

In this case, the persons concerned must notify the owner of their status and of the continuation of the lease for their benefit. This information must be materialized in writing, justifying if necessary in an unequivocal way a community of life and we would advise you to privilege the act of a bailiff.

Special attention in the case of low-rent housing: in the case of a HLM, the beneficiaries of the transfer must obviously meet the requirements for the allocation of housing.

The death of the tenant holding a furnished lease :

Unlike naked rentals, furnished rentals are not resolved by the death of the tenant. Therefore, the lease is transferred to the heirs automatically, without their having to give notice of their wish to exercise the option.

The quid pro quo is therefore that the heirs who do not wish to benefit from the transfer of the lease must give notice in the same form as the tenant... simply because they have become tenants. 

Again, we can only advise you to call upon the security of the bailiff's act. Indeed, a registered letter is only of value if it is precisely written and if its addressee is going to collect it, which you only know 15 to 20 days later .

The tenant without heirs:

Sometimes the deceased tenant has no known heirs. We are in the case of what is known as a vacant estate.

This case is provided for in Article 809 of the Civil Code, which states that the estate is vacant if :

• no one claims the estate and there is no known heir;
• there are known heirs but all have renounced the estate;
• there are known heirs but none of them has accepted the succession, either tacitly or expressly, at the end of a period of 6 months from the opening of the succession.

In this case, it is possible that the dwelling may remain cluttered with the deceased's belongings for several months.

In order to prevent your property from being immobilised and to prevent the estate's services from remaining immobilised while they carry out their day-to-day management aimed at valuing the deceased's assets, the owner is one of the persons who can request that protective measures be taken; these may include the removal of the deceased tenant's belongings. 

Without going into the details of the procedure by a bailiff concerning vacant estates, let us simply recall that the bailiff is appointed by the court on simple request in order to take protective measures which are in particular the placing of seals, the descriptive state of the movable goods or the drawing up of a report of failure to act, but also the removal of furniture. 

This possibility is offered by article 1324 of the code of civil procedure, which provides that the judicial officer unseals the seals previously affixed, and assists with the removal. 

It is the practice of our office to make such requests and to assist in the removal of property, taking minutes of them. 

The rapidity of our intervention allows the owner to recover the property quickly. 

Do not hesitate to contact us for more information. 

(also read the article about squatting)