Locked out: the landlord changed the locks and cut the power, in 7 jurisdictions
Locks changed while you were at work, belongings in the basement, electricity off, no court order. Italy, Germany and Spain put you back in first and argue later. England and California price the wrong instead. New York makes it an offence. France abolished the remedy in 2015.
The problem
The locks were changed while the occupier was at work. His belongings are in the basement, the electricity has been cut off, and there was never any eviction order — the landlord simply decided the tenancy was over and acted on it. The occupier wants back in today, not after a trial about who is entitled to be there.
What they agree on
Every one of these systems agrees on the underlying principle: whoever wants possession has to obtain it through the courts, and helping himself is unlawful even when he turns out to be right about the tenancy. The German § 858 states it in the plainest terms and draws the consequence the others leave implicit — verbotene Eigenmacht is committed by the owner too, because 'der Besitz wird um seiner selbst willen geschuetzt, damit sich Streit nicht durch Zugriff, sondern vor Gericht klaert'. The Spanish art. 446 states the same idea in one sentence: every possessor has the right to be respected in his possession.
The second point of agreement is that the entitlement question is postponed. None of these provisions decides who ought to be living in the property. The Italian page says so of art. 1168 — a person put back may perfectly well be lawfully evicted afterwards; the reinstatement restores the factual position, it does not confer a right to stay. The German § 861 page says the same of the German claim, and the Spanish art. 446 page of the Spanish one. Winning here does not win the tenancy.
The third is that speed is built in and so is a deadline. Italian art. 1168 requires the judge to order reinstatement 'sulla semplice notorieta del fatto, senza dilazione', and gives one year from the dispossession — or from its discovery if it was clandestine. German § 864 extinguishes the § 861 claim one year after the act unless it has been asserted in court. Spanish art. 1968.1 gives one year for the action to recover or retain possession. These are emergency rights, and they are the first thing lost by waiting.
After that the systems part company completely, and the divergence is not about degree — it is about what the law is trying to achieve.
Where they part company
| Jurisdiction | What its law does | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Italia | Italy protects the mere holder, not only the possessor. Art. 1168 grants the reintegrazione 'altresi a chi ha la detenzione della cosa', excluding only those holding for reasons of service or of hospitality. Where the dispossession is clandestine the year runs from the day it was discovered, not from the day it happened. | A tenant, a borrower, someone occupying under an informal arrangement — all of them can bring the action in their own name without arguing about ownership. The two exclusions are narrow and specific: an employee living in accommodation that comes with the job, and a guest. The clandestine-discovery rule is what saves the person who returns after months away to find the place emptied. |
| Italy splits the remedy in two and leaves a gap between them. Art. 1168 covers dispossession that was violent or clandestine. Art. 1170 covers disturbance short of dispossession — and, in its last paragraph, dispossession that was neither violent nor clandestine — but only where the possession has lasted more than a year, continuously and uninterrupted, and was not itself acquired by force or stealth. | The occupier locked out openly and without violence in the third month of a tenancy is in the gap: too peaceful for art. 1168, too recent for art. 1170. Whether a lockout counts as violent or clandestine is therefore not a detail but the question the case turns on, and it is exactly the sort of fact to put in front of an Italian lawyer immediately. | |
| France | France used to have the strongest version of the civil-law answer and abolished it. The possessory actions — the reintegrande and the complainte — were removed by loi n. 2015-177 of 16 February 2015, which repealed art. 2279 of the Code civil. | The remedy did not disappear; it moved. It now runs through the juge des referes, with art. 226-4-2 of the Code penal making it an offence to force an occupier out of his home without a court order. So a French reader in this situation is not worse off than an Italian one — but the answer is not in the Code civil, which is why this cluster has no French member at all. The lookup's suggestions (arts. 1719, 1217, 1240) are the contractual and delictual fallbacks a French lawyer would in fact plead alongside the referes application. |
| Deutschland | Germany writes down that the owner is not exempt. § 858(1) makes it unlawful to take possession from the possessor without his will 'sofern nicht das Gesetz die Entziehung oder die Stoerung gestattet', and § 858(2) taints the possession so obtained as fehlerhaft — a taint that binds a successor who is an heir or who knew of it. § 861 then gives the claim to have possession restored, requiring no proof of title, no right to possess and no fault. | The German scheme separates the wrong (§ 858) from the claim (§ 861), which is why a German lawyer reaches for both. The bar in § 861(2) is the trap: the claim is excluded where the claimant's own possession was itself flawed as against the current possessor and was obtained in the year before the dispossession. Possessory protection does not reward whoever grabbed first. |
| Across the seven, the two families disagree about what the law is for here. Italy, Germany and Spain treat this as a question about possession: whoever was in occupation is put back first and entitlement is argued afterwards. England, California and New York treat it as a statutory wrong with a consequence attached — damages measured on the landlord's gain, a civil penalty per violation, a criminal violation. | It changes what a reader should ask for. In the three possessory systems the right question is 'restore the position'. In the three English-language ones it is 'what is the wrong worth' — and in England, asking for restoration can cost you the answer to the second question. Which of those a particular occupier should be doing, and in what order, is exactly the point at which to take advice locally rather than from a comparison. | |
| España | Spain says it in one line and immediately hands the mechanics to procedure. Art. 446: every possessor has the right to be respected, and if disturbed must be protected or restored 'por los medios que las leyes de procedimiento establecen'. The Code supplies the principle and the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil supplies the route. | It makes art. 446 the most portable statement of the idea in the group and the least self-executing. The Spanish page's warning is the practical one: the protection is claimed through specific procedural channels with very short periods, and art. 1968.1 prescribes the action in one year from the disturbance or dispossession. Miss it and only the slower ownership dispute remains. |
| United Kingdom | England does not restore possession under this heading — it prices the loss, and then withdraws the price if the occupier goes back in. HA 1988 s. 27 creates a liability in the nature of tort for unlawful eviction; but subsection (6) removes that liability entirely if, before the proceedings are finally disposed of, the former occupier is reinstated — including where a court makes an order at his own request that results in reinstatement. | This is the sharpest inversion in the whole comparison. Italy, Germany and Spain answer 'how do I get back in'. England makes the occupier choose: get back in, or get the money, but not both. As the s. 27 page puts it, an occupier who wants the section 27 measure 'must think carefully about seeking an injunction to get back in'. That is a decision with real consequences and it belongs with a solicitor before anything is filed. |
| The English measure is not the occupier's loss but the landlord's gain. Section 28 assesses damages as the difference in the value of the landlord's interest — in the whole building and its curtilage, not just the flat — valued first on the assumption that the occupier keeps his right to occupy, and then on the assumption that he has lost it, with the further assumptions that the landlord is selling to a willing buyer, that neither the occupier nor his family would buy, and that substantial development or demolition would be unlawful. | It is a disgorgement rule dressed as damages: the landlord hands over the profit that getting the occupier out would have produced. Where the occupier had a protected or long-standing tenancy in a valuable building the figure can dwarf the rent; where he had little security it may be modest. Either way both numbers are matters of valuation evidence, so an English claim under ss. 27 and 28 usually needs a surveyor. Distress, inconvenience and emergency accommodation are claimed separately, on ordinary principles. | |
| California | California attacks the pressure rather than the lockout. § 1940.2(a) makes five things unlawful when done 'for the purpose of influencing a tenant to vacate a dwelling': conduct violating Penal Code § 484 or § 518, the use or threat of force or menacing conduct amounting to a course of conduct interfering with quiet enjoyment under § 1927 that would create apprehension of harm in a reasonable person, a significant and intentional violation of the entry rules in § 1954, and a threat to disclose anyone's immigration or citizenship status. Subdivision (b) attaches a civil penalty of up to $2,000 for each violation to a tenant who prevails, including in small claims court. | The section does not name a lockout or a utility shutoff in its own words: those reach it through the quiet-enjoyment limb and the Penal Code cross-references. Two paragraphs also say expressly that the tenant need not have been actually or constructively evicted to obtain relief, so the claim survives the tenant staying put. The small-claims route and the per-violation penalty are what make it usable at all when the sums are small — but the section is about conduct aimed at making someone leave, not about getting them back in. |
| New York | New York criminalises it and says nothing about compensation. RPL § 235 provides that a lessor, agent, manager, superintendent or janitor who willfully or intentionally fails to furnish water, heat, light, power, elevator or telephone service when necessary to the proper or customary use of the building, or who 'wilfully and intentionally interferes with the quiet enjoyment of the leased premises', 'is guilty of a violation'. Subdivision 2 adds a second offence for obstructing a fuel oil delivery or the refiring of the burner. | It is the only member of the seven that names the individual superintendent or manager alongside the owner, and the only one whose operative words create an offence rather than a claim. As the § 235 page notes, it 'is not written as a compensation provision, and it does not say what the tenant gets'. It also excludes breakdowns entirely: a boiler that broke is a habitability question under § 235-b, while a boiler that was switched off is this section. |
The provision in each country
Each card links to the page that reproduces the official text and explains it in that country's own language.
Italia Codice Civile
- Art. 1168 Codice Civile Anyone violently or secretly dispossessed — including a mere holder such as a tenant — may demand reinstatement within a year, ordered on the bare notoriety of the fact and without delay.
- Art. 1170 Codice Civile Where possession is disturbed rather than taken — or taken without violence or stealth — the remedy is maintenance of possession, but only for possession lasting over a year, continuous and untainted.
Deutschland BGB
- § 858 BGB Taking or disturbing possession against the possessor's will is unlawful self-help — even by the owner — and the possession so obtained is tainted.
- § 861 BGB The dispossessed party may demand possession back from whoever holds it faultily — no title, no right to possess and no fault to prove.
España Código Civil
United Kingdom Housing Act 1988
- HA 1988 s. 27 A landlord who unlawfully deprives a residential occupier of occupation, or drives him out by withdrawing services or interfering with his peace, is liable in damages — unless the occupier is reinstated.
- HA 1988 s. 28 The damages are the difference in the value of the landlord's interest in the whole building with and without the occupier's right to occupy.
California California Civil Code
Where there is no answer in the code
A jurisdiction listed here is a finding, not a gap. Either its answer lives outside the corpus — special legislation, case law, municipal rules — or its law simply has no such rule.
-
France
In law we don't carry
Code pénal, art. 226-4-2
France abolished the possessory actions — the reintegrande and the complainte — by loi n. 2015-177 of 16 February 2015, which repealed art. 2279 of the Code civil. The remedy moved wholesale to the juge des referes and to art. 226-4-2 of the Code penal, which makes it an offence to force an occupier out of his home without a court decision. So the Code civil genuinely has no article for this, and its absence here is a change in French law rather than a gap in the corpus.
That's the law in seven places. Now let's settle your problem.
Say what is happening. A neutral mediator hears your side and the other party's, and walks you both to a written agreement. In the advanced settings you can ask for the decision to be reasoned on the law of one of these jurisdictions.
Or open a session directly and invite the other party.
This page compares provisions of several legal systems in general terms and links to the official text of each. It is not legal advice, it does not tell you which country's law governs your situation, and it takes no account of the circumstances of your case. For a live dispute, consult a qualified lawyer in the jurisdiction concerned.