The Conseil d’État has just answered: 6 years, not a single day more.
⚖️ The principle established
In Opinion No. 503768 of July 24, 2025, the Conseil d’État addressed a central issue of French urban planning law:
👉 The mayor’s power to issue an enforcement order (Article L.481-1 Urban Planning Code) is limited to the 6-year criminal statute of limitations under Article 8 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, running from the completion of the works.
The reasoning is straightforward: since the enforcement order requires a prior report of an offense (Article L.480-1), it would be inconsistent to allow it once the public action itself is time-barred.
📜 Texts in alignment
- Art. L.480-1 Urban Planning Code: prior report of the offense.
- Art. L.481-1 Urban Planning Code: enforcement order to regularize or demolish.
- Art. 8 French Code of Criminal Procedure: 6-year statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of délits.
🏗️ Successive unlawful works
The Conseil d’État provided essential clarifications:
- ✅ Only non-time-barred works may justify an enforcement order.
- ✅ However, regularization must cover the entire construction (Thalamy case law).
- ✅ If overall regularization is impossible, the enforcement order may only target the recent works still subject to compliance.
📊 Summary of applicable time limits
- 6 years: Criminal prosecution (Art. 8 CCP) + Enforcement order (L.481-1).
- 10 years: Civil action for demolition (L.480-14).
- No time limit: Administrative police measures in case of serious and imminent danger.
🔭 Practical implications
This development brings welcome coherence:
- For local authorities: a duty of responsiveness — beyond 6 years, no enforcement order is possible.
- For property owners and developers: greater legal certainty, though regularization still requires compliance with the rule of global regularization.
- For practitioners: increased vigilance in monitoring time limits and in qualifying works.
By aligning the enforcement order with the criminal statute of limitations, the Conseil d’État rationalizes urban planning law and provides greater security for stakeholders. But it also requires municipalities to manage their procedures more strictly and more rapidly.
In urban planning, time is no longer just a factor of construction, it is now a legal limit.
Source : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000052010199
