How do you obtain a right of way for landlocked land in France?

The conditions: genuinely landlocked land or an insufficient access

Article 682 of the French Civil Code reserves this right for the owner whose land has no access to the public road, or an access insufficient for the agricultural, industrial or commercial use of the property, or for carrying out building or subdivision operations. Whether land is landlocked is therefore assessed in concrete terms: an existing access that is impassable or unsuited to the normal use of the land may be enough.

Case law, on the other hand, denies the benefit of this provision to an owner whose land is landlocked through his own doing, for instance if he himself built over his only access. Moreover, where the land became landlocked as a result of the division of a plot following a sale, an exchange or a partition, the passage may only be claimed over the plots resulting from that division (Article 684), Article 682 becoming applicable again only if a sufficient passage cannot be established over them.

The route of the passage and the compensation owed to the neighbour

The passage must be sufficient to provide full access to the landlocked land. Its route follows a twofold rule laid down by Article 683 of the French Civil Code: it is taken on the side where the route from the landlocked land to the public road is shortest, but fixed at the spot least damaging to the land that bears it.

In return, the landlocked owner owes compensation proportionate to the damage the passage causes (Article 682). The claim for compensation is subject to limitation, but the passage itself may be continued even where that claim is no longer admissible (Article 685, second paragraph). Where the passage has been exercised continuously for thirty years, that use definitively fixes the route and the manner of exercise of the easement (Article 685, first paragraph).

In practice, it is better to formalise the agreement in a notarial deed registered with the French land registry: the precise route, the width, the permitted uses (pedestrians, vehicles, utility networks), maintenance and compensation are then fixed, which avoids most later disputes.

The end of the passage once the land is no longer landlocked

The statutory right of way exists only because the land is landlocked. If that situation ends, for instance because a public road is created or the owner acquires a plot giving access to the road, the owner of the servient land may invoke the extinction of the easement at any time, however it was exercised (Article 685-1 of the French Civil Code).

Failing an amicable agreement between neighbours, the end of the landlocked situation is established by a court decision (Article 685-1, second paragraph). The court checks that the new access is genuinely sufficient for the normal use of the land.