After falling out of the window, a former tenant, who had a court order to leave the accommodation he had occupied for a year, sued its owner for lack of maintenance – the railing had given way. The Court of Cassation considered, in a judgment delivered on September 15, that the owner’s liability was engaged.
Even squatted, housing must be maintained by its owner. This is, in essence, what the Court of Cassation affirmed in its judgment delivered on September 15th. “The occupation without right or title of a property by the victim of the accident cannot constitute a fault likely to exonerate the owner from his responsibility when the accident results from a lack of maintenance”, explains the jurisdiction, cited by our colleagues from Parisian.
In this story, a former tenant – who had been ordered to leave the accommodation for a year following a court decision – attacked his landlord, demanding tens of thousands of euros. According to the squatter, due to a lack of maintenance – the railing was no longer properly fixed – the plaintiff was injured by falling out of the window.
If, for his part, the owner considered that it was his tenant who had committed a fault by remaining in the premises after the end of the lease, after having received leave and despite a court decision, and that this resulted in the fall , the Court of Cassation ruled in favor of the injured party. The latter considers, in fact, that it is the lack of maintenance of the guardrail, which was the responsibility of the owner, which is the main, even exclusive, cause of the accident.