Rental property notice period

Normally, a tenant must give one month's notice to quit a property (previously 3 months in the old 2005 law) at any time but must use a registered letter (lettre recommande avec avis de reception), with no reason reason needed to explain this.

Recently, a busy owner who was about to take off himself for a year or two wanted to cover the eventuality that the proposed tenant might leave before the twelve months were up therefore requiring his input when he really doesn't want to be bother for the forseeable future with more tenant search and screening.

In this case, because the rental contract was a furnished retal classed as a second home/residence secondaire (the tenant's home address in the USA was added to the contract), he was able to make the notice period (on the part of the renter) longer than one month

The reason for this is that if the rental is classed as a second home/residence secondaire then it falls within commercial law and whatever is written into the contract applies.

Owners must just make sure the contract is clearly marked as second home/residence secondaire if they wish to take advantage of this.