2023-10-16 06:00:11
The tenant who does not participate in the exit inventory does not escape repairs which would be linked to his damage, ruled the Court of Cassation, in a judgment of September 7 (Cass. Civ 3, 7.9.2023, G 22-16.172). The court can in fact be satisfied with an inventory of the premises drawn up by the owner alone, if it finds sufficient elements to judge that there is excessive deterioration which would not be linked to normal use or to obsolescence.
An inventory drawn up by the owner only
A tenant contested his conviction by arguing that the exit inventory, in view of which he was being asked for more than 3,000 euros, had been drawn up non-contradictorily, by the owner alone, and that it was difficult to understand. Nothing says, he maintained, that the attached photos were taken in the apartment and when the premises were vacated. In addition, it includes equipment which was not mentioned in the inventory of fixtures at entry and the difference in wording between the two inventories makes any comparison difficult.
However, the court sovereignly assesses what is submitted to it, recalled the judges of the Court of Cassation. And in this case, the condition of an apartment is a fact which can be proven by any means. Equipped with the inventory of the premises upon entry, the description of the owner after the tenant’s exit and the photographs, the court was able to consider itself sufficiently informed, they explained. It was up to the outgoing tenant to contest and prove that these damages, which he is in principle responsible for repairing, were not his fault.
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