Chapter V: Commercial leases.

The tenant may add related or complementary activities to the business provided for in the lease. To this end, he must make his intention known to the landlord by extrajudicial act or by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, indicating the activities whose exercise is envisaged. This formality serves as formal notice to the owner to make known within two months, on pain of forfeiture, whether he disputes the related…

The tenant may, at his request, be authorised to carry on one or more activities in the rented premises that differ from those provided for in the lease, having regard to economic conditions and the requirements of the rational organisation of distribution, where such activities are compatible with the purpose, character and location of the building or property complex. However, the first tenant of premises forming part of a commercial…

The request made to the lessor must, on pain of nullity, include an indication of the activities whose exercise is envisaged. It shall be made by extrajudicial act or by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt and notified in the same form to the creditors registered on the business. The latter may request that the change of business be subject to conditions likely to safeguard their interests. The lessor must,…

The change of activity may give rise to the payment, by the lessee, of compensation equal to the amount of the loss that the lessor would establish to exist. The latter may also, in return for the advantage provided, request at the time of the transformation, the modification of the lease price without there being any need to apply the provisions of articles L. 145-37 to L. 145-39. The rights…

When a lessee who has applied for his retirement rights or who has been granted a disability pension under the disability and death insurance scheme for the craft trades or the industrial and commercial professions has notified his landlord and the creditors registered on the business of his intention to sell his lease, specifying the nature of the activities he intends to pursue and the proposed price, the lessor has…

The court may authorise the total or partial conversion despite the lessor’s refusal, if such refusal is not justified by a serious and legitimate reason. If the dispute relates solely to the price of the lease, this shall be fixed in accordance with the regulatory provisions laid down for the fixing of the price of revised leases. In other cases, the matter is brought before the court.

Refusal to convert is sufficiently justified if the lessor provides evidence that he intends to take over the premises at the end of the current three-year period, either in application of articles L. 145-18 to L. 145-24, or with a view to carrying out work prescribed or authorised as part of an urban renewal or property restoration operation. A landlord who has falsely invoked one of the reasons provided for…

The added value conferred on the business by the conversion provided for in article L. 145-48, where the building in which the business is run is to be demolished or restored, or where the business is to be expropriated as part of a property renovation or restoration operation decided on less than three years after the request provided for in paragraph 1 of the said article.