I can also confirm that your English contract is invalid here in France. (We have let out our UK property to a french family while we are now resident in France, and I was told that we had to include a UK address on the contract for it to be valid in the UK.) So the contract you have is not legally binding in either country.
My friend has had problems with her landlord here in france, as he wants to significantly change the terms of her contract at the end of the current period. She does not want to renew with new terms and he is apparently unable to make her leave because a) she is currently receiving treatment for cancer and b) you cannot be evicted in france during the winter (sounds mad, but it will work in your favour!)
Others on here have already given you advice regarding getting advice/support from the relevant sources. I would also suggest that you buy in plenty of food etc, just in case your landlord turns up and tries to get nasty. At least you can just stay inside and ignore him while the due legal process is followed.
They are clearly outside of and disrespecting the laws of France and it will be them wanting to beat a path to your door when you bring the full extent and weight of French law to bear on them.
Hold your ground, keep your powder dry and make them do the hard work. Take your time to find alternative accommodation by all means but keep your own counsel about it. Consider the amount of compensation you will consider appropriate to buy you out of the 3 year standard contract early.
As tenants but also as residents of France, have you been filing tax returns yourself? If you have, you will no doubt have completed the section which requires you to tell them the name of the owner (or their agent, presumably). A visit to your tax office could become quite beneficial.
Even in the "furnished" case, the contract is not legal as these contracts on French territory are likewise ruled by French law.
Furnished means equipped to a level where one can live comfortably in the said property. There's no exhaustive list and courts decide on a case-to-case basis.
The minimum duration is a one year contract, renewable for the same period at the end of the contract if the owner does not invoke the annulation clause
But following the same logic I described in my earlier post one could state that
the contract does not comply with French law
parties had the intention to enter into an agreement
the duration of this agreement is indefinite since in the "English" contract no maximum duration was agreed.
But your rights in the this case are less protected; the landlord/lady can terminate the contract with a month's notice. But for that they need a genuine French contract and not the English one. So it's again up to them to undertake action, but I'd strongly advice you to go to the Mairie and see if they've got someone for the "assistance social" or if there's one in a neighboring village.
And you're absolutely right to continue paying what's due to the landlord. Not paying could harm your case if ever it gets taken to court....
Can't help with the legal angle - but you also wanted the landlord's UK address. You have his/her name and landline phone number, so have you tried the BT website. There's facility there to get a location for the dialing code prefix and from that you can do a search for people of the relevant name in that location and can check the phone number you have against the results. Hopefully they're not ex-directory. Not guaranteed to find them but worth a shot.
First of all, don't panic, you can not be evicted without a lengthy legal process, between November 1st and March 15thand sometimes you can never be evicted at all - see this story of the Hobos inFrance which is a terribly sad tale.
Ben is absolutely right, you do not have a proper contract and the rights are all yours in France as a standard contract is deemed to exist in the absence of a correct one. Hopefully you have regular home insurance - a legal obligation as a tenant and usually 'assistance juridique' is included. Send a registered letter as Ben suggests, requesting a reply within a reasonable time frame. When you have a reply contact your insurance, ask for their assistance and they will usually take over from there.
With regards to your letter recommende, the important date is the one on the envelope, not the date on the letter so hopefully you still have the envelope. Interesting that they threatened legal action immediately - they are obviously trying to scare you out as they know they are not within the law.
However, there is a huge difference between furnished and unfurnished accommodation, everything we have written applies to unfurnished, I have no idea about furnished. I write this as a former tenant, with mainly good and just one bad experience and as a landlord with equal amounts of good/bad tenants. A
All the best and I hope your husband recovers soon, I'm sure this is terrible stress for you.
Ben's said pretty much what I think too - the contract isn't worth the paper it's written on if it's an English contract. You're extremely well covered/protected as a tenant in France, don't be pushed around! You might like to point out that they can't even kick you out even if you stop paying the rent (trêve hivernale) and it'd take so long to go through the courts that even if they got a court order to get you out it'd take until next autumn by which time they can't kick you out even with a court order during the trêve hivernale... that may give them some food for thought and bring them back down to earth with a bump!
Bonne chance ;-)
PS I/we have rented several times, always from French owners or companies and have never had a problem. Normal landlords are very thankfull to have good reliable tenants!
As I see it the case could be very straightforward. I suppose you rented the house "nu", that is not you, but as in unfurnished.
Minimum duration of the rent-period is then 3 years if the owner is a physical person or 6 years if the owner is a "personne morale" i'e company etc.
the duration can be limited to 1 year if the owner wants to recuperate the house for its own use, that is to live in him/her self. In that case it is mandatory that the contract contains a clause to that explicit effect.
Basically you have been presented with a non-legal contract.On French territory these contracts are regulated by the following law (if your French is good enough check the content, it's really worthwhile) : Loi n° 89-462 du 6 juillet 1989 tendant à améliorer les rapports lo.... The current contract doesn't seem to be within the limits of that law so you can demand the owner (via your local contact) to respect the French law. To me the pressure exerted on you to sign the original contract shows me that the owner or the contact was well aware of the illegal procedure.
On top of that, the owner can't organize visits for potential buyers if it's not with your explicit agreement, either by a specific clause in the signed contract or by demanding you to allow it (in which case you can always say no and the owner will have to go to court to obtain the visiting rights for potential buyers (with a max of 2 hours per day) (check this for your practical rights). But even if there's a buyer, he/she cannot live in your house for the duration of the rental agreement. He/she simply becomes the new owner to whom the rent is being paid for the remainder of the contract. Entrance of the property without your (contractual) consent is punishable under the article "226-4 du Code Pénal" (max 15k euros fine and/or 1 year imprisonment)
So what I would do is to write a letter (recommande, accuse de reception) to the agent stating that, under French law (citing the above mentioned law) the current contract is not a legal one but that given your position and circumstances at that time, you had no option but to finally sign it. However you consider that both parties were able and willing to enter into a rental agreement and that you want to continue the relationship under the minimum requirements of the applicable French law. And that he/she would be so kind to convey that message to the owners adress. Leave it to that, it's up to them to undertake further i.e. legal actions. Never mind the fact that the tone of and the pressure in the discussions to follow might ramp up very quickly, just stay calm. And since the position of tenants is extremely well protected in France......
Check if the town you live in doesn't employ an "assistance social" a person who deals with, amongst others, this kind of questions. Ask if there's a body that does deal with this kind of questions and possible litigation.