A rural lease granted by one spouse alone: management of another’s affairs may save it

Under Article 1425 of the French Civil Code, spouses married under a community property regime cannot lease community farmland without each other’s consent. Article 1427 allows the spouse who did not consent to seek annulment, unless they ratified the transaction, within two years of learning of it.

The Court of Cassation also holds that granting a nine-year rural lease is an act of disposal which cannot be covered by an implied mandate between spouses.

However, Article 219, paragraph 2, of the Civil Code, applicable regardless of the matrimonial property regime, provides that, in the absence of statutory authority, a mandate or court authorisation, acts performed by one spouse on behalf of the other take effect against the latter under the rules governing management of another’s affairs (gestion d’affaires).

A husband acting alone granted an oral lease from January 2016 over two community-owned plots at a modest annual rent. In 2018, the spouses sold the plots to third parties. The tenant applied to the rural lease tribunal for recognition of her lease and annulment of the sale made in breach of her pre-emption right. The tribunal and then the Court of Appeal recognised her tenant status, holding that the husband had managed his wife’s affairs.

The Court of Cassation established two principles. First, Articles 1425 and 1427 of the Civil Code, which provide for nullity of a rural lease granted by one spouse alone over community property, do not exclude the rules governing management of another’s affairs. Second, recourse to those rules under Article 219, paragraph 2, does not require the other spouse to be unable to express their wishes.

It nevertheless quashed the ruling on a decisive point. Under former Article 1375 of the Civil Code, the person whose affairs are managed is bound by commitments made in their name only if the affairs were properly managed. To reject the application to annul the lease, the Court of Appeal therefore had to examine whether the husband’s management was beneficial, which it had not done.

A tenant whose lease was signed by only one spouse is not automatically destined for eviction. They may invoke management of another’s affairs, but must demonstrate that granting the lease benefited the community, for example in view of the rent, maintenance of the land or the absence of another project for the plots.

For married landowners, prudence remains essential: both spouses should sign any rural lease over community property, and the lease should be put in writing. For land buyers, the ruling is a reminder that an oral lease granted by one seller alone may be enforceable, together with the pre-emption right it carries.