Partial Safer pre-emption: what the 2026 law changes

For twelve years, selling a country house together with its hectares of meadows or woodland was the safest, and perfectly legal, way to keep the Safer out of a rural transaction. Law no. 2026-796 of 18 August 2026, the emergency law for the protection and sovereignty of agriculture, partially closes that door. Since its publication in the Journal officiel on 19 August 2026, the notaire must notify the Safer separately of any agricultural land that is not contiguous with the house being sold, and the Safer may pre-empt that land on its own, without the seller being able to force it to buy the house as well.

The stakes are not trivial. According to the FNSafer, 28,400 hectares left agricultural use in 2025 through "hidden consumption", meaning the purchase of built and unbuilt property by non-farmers, more than three times the area artificialised in the same year (8,500 hectares). Almost one in two of the transactions concerned involved a built property.

This article explains what partial pre-emption is, why it did not work, what the 2026 law actually changes (and what it leaves untouched), which exceptions remain, and what it means in practice for a seller, a buyer or a notaire. It also sets out the criticisms the text has attracted.

Partial pre-emption by the Safer: what are we talking about?

Partial pre-emption is the power of a Safer to pre-empt only part of the property offered for sale in a single deed, in practice the agricultural land, leaving the rest (the dwelling house, buildings without agricultural use, building land) to the original buyer. It is provided for in article L. 143-1-1 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code, created by the Agricultural Future Act of 13 October 2014.

The provision is by no means one-sided. The 2014 legislature, warned by the Conseil d'État of the risk of infringing property rights, gave the seller something in return: when the Safer announces a partial pre-emption, the owner has two months to choose between three courses of action.

This mechanism remains in force in 2026. The law of 18 August 2026 does not change a single word of it. It acts upstream, at the stage of notifying the sale, and that is the whole subtlety of the reform.

Why partial pre-emption did not work

Before 2014: all or nothing

Until the Agricultural Future Act, the Safer had to pre-empt all of the property notified or waive its right. As soon as a single item in the sale fell outside its right of pre-emption, a house with no connection to a farm for instance, it could pre-empt nothing at all. The Cour de cassation reiterated this in a ruling of 28 March 2019 (3rd Civil Chamber, appeal no. 18-11.722), on facts predating 2014: the pre-emption of a set of eight agricultural parcels and a house in need of renovation was annulled, regardless of how much the agricultural area predominated.

Since 2014: a right neutralised in eight cases out of ten

Partial pre-emption was meant to resolve this deadlock. It was neutralised by the first of the seller's three options. A Safer can neither tie up several hundred thousand euros in a dwelling house nor resell it as part of its remit. When a seller requires it to buy everything, it almost always withdraws.

The official figures are unambiguous. As early as 2020, the Minister of Agriculture acknowledged before the Senate that this option "almost systematically prevents pre-emption by the Safer" and that partial pre-emptions accounted for less than 10% of the total in 2018. In 2026, the explanatory statement of the government amendment behind the reform states that the seller requires acquisition of the whole in 82% of cases and that the Safer is then forced to withdraw in 60% of those cases, "owing to its inability to find a buyer or to put together a project at the prices asked".

The textbook case cited in the National Assembly

In the sitting of 29 May 2026, MP Peio Dufau described a sale in Arbonne, in the Basque Country: a house in need of renovation and fifteen hectares of land, valued at €800,000 by the Safer, sold for €3.2 million to a non-farming buyer. According to him, this type of transaction wipes out the equivalent of four farms every year in the Basque Country and seventy-eight in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Attaching a house to the land has never been classed as fraud by the courts: it was a legal practice, and an effective one.

What the law of 18 August 2026 changes

The answer fits in one sentence: when the sale includes both property that can be pre-empted and non-contiguous property that cannot, the notification to the Safer is now made in two separate operations. On the lot consisting of the land, the Safer exercises an ordinary pre-emption, and the seller can no longer counter with the requirement that it also buy the house, since the house is the subject of a separate notification.

The new paragraph I bis of article L. 141-1-1 of the Rural Code

Article 37 of the law inserts a paragraph I bis into article L. 141-1-1, which governs the obligation to inform the Safer of sales of rural property. It provides that where the transfer includes both real property or rights over which a Safer is authorised to pre-empt (under articles L. 143-1, L. 143-7 and L. 143-16) and "non-contiguous" property over which it is not, the notification formality "is carried out separately for the two types of property". Each notification states the price and terms specific to the property it concerns, and "constitutes, for the purposes of the right of pre-emption, a distinct operation".

This last sentence, added in the Senate by an amendment drafted with the FNSafer, is decisive. Without it, the separation would have remained a formality: the Safer could have had article L. 143-1-1 invoked against it on the grounds that the sale was a single whole. With it, the non-contiguous land forms an autonomous sale as far as the right of pre-emption is concerned.

What has not changed: house and adjoining land

The text covers only non-contiguous property. A longère and the twelve hectares surrounding it remain a single sale, subject to the unchanged article L. 143-1-1: the Safer may propose a partial pre-emption, but the seller retains the right to require purchase of the whole or to claim compensation. The MPs who wanted to extend the scheme to contiguous property, "precisely the most common situation" in their own words, were narrowly defeated in the National Assembly (52 votes for, 63 against), the government having flagged an "obvious constitutional risk". A further attempt in the joint committee also failed.

From the Dufau bill to the emergency law: timeline

Timeline of the reform — Sources : legislative files of the National Assembly and the Senate, Journal officiel.

The exceptions: historic monuments and remarkable gardens

Separate notification does not apply in two cases, secured in Parliament at the initiative of the associations of historic house owners:

• listed or registered historic monuments, "together with the land with which they form a coherent property ensemble and which belongs to the same owner";
• land holding the "jardin remarquable" (remarkable garden) label awarded by the Minister for Culture.

For these properties, the sale continues to be notified as a single block and the seller retains the three options of article L. 143-1-1, including that of requiring the Safer to buy the whole. The exception therefore does not remove this land from pre-emption; it restores to the owner the lever that neutralises it in practice.

The scope of these exceptions was fiercely debated. The Senate committee had added remarkable heritage sites and sites listed or registered under the Environmental Code. Eight identical amendments, from every group, removed this third exception in the plenary sitting, on the grounds that it covered considerable areas in highly sought-after locations and created a breach of equality. The government, for its part, wanted to remove all the exceptions, considering that "the Safer has never had the task of intervening in sales of remarkable gardens or historic monuments"; it was not followed. A point to watch for château owners: the concept of a "coherent property ensemble" is no more defined than that of contiguity.

The other Safer measures in the same text

Article 37 is not limited to separate notification. It must be read as a whole, because its other provisions change the time limits and scope of pre-emption for all rural sales, contiguous or not.

The other provisions of articles 37 and 38 of law no. 2026-796 — Source : final text adopted on 21 July 2026.

Practical consequences for the seller, the buyer and the notaire

For the seller of a house with non-adjoining land

The first reflex is cartographic: even before setting a price, you need to identify which parcels are contiguous with the house and which are not. The latter will be the subject of their own notification, with their own price and terms, and can be pre-empted on their own. The seller will not be able to require the Safer to buy the house, and no compensation for loss of value is provided for in this scenario.

The temptation will be to apportion the price by overvaluing the house and undervaluing the land, so as to make pre-empting the land unattractive to resell, or conversely to inflate the price of the land to deter the Safer. The second strategy runs into the power of price revision, which we covered in detail in our article Can the SAFER impose a sale price?; the first exposes the seller to a sale of the house at a price that the buyer, deprived of the land, will refuse to pay. It is therefore essential to include in the preliminary sale agreement a condition precedent linking the two lots: if the land is pre-empted, the buyer must be able to withdraw from the house, or renegotiate.

For the non-farming buyer

The risk is the reverse: ending up the owner of a house without the hectares that motivated the purchase. Three approaches limit this risk. The first is a credible agricultural project, carried out personally or by a tenant farmer installed on the land before the sale, bearing in mind that a tenant in place for more than three years takes precedence over the Safer. The second is an indivisibility clause for the lots in the pre-contract. The third is a careful reading of the time limits: with the right of inspection, the period of uncertainty can now exceed three months from notification.

For the notaire and the intermediary

Two declarations of intent to sell instead of one, each with its own price, terms and cadastral description, and a sales mandate that describes the position of the parcels. Rural notaires have already pointed out that the inspection extends the period in practice from two to three months and that a single promise of sale will have to be drafted accordingly. It should be remembered that an incomplete or late notification exposes the sale to annulment for six months from publication of the deed.

Three practical cases

• Longère and twelve adjoining hectares. Single sale, article L. 143-1-1 unchanged. If the Safer proposes to pre-empt only the land, the seller can require it to buy the whole, which will most often lead it to withdraw.
• Longère and twelve hectares located 800 metres away, on the other side of the departmental road. Two notifications. The land can be pre-empted on its own at the notified price, or with a price revision. The seller is left with the house to sell, the buyer loses the land.
• Manor house registered as a historic monument and twenty hectares two kilometres away. Single notification maintained if the land forms "a coherent property ensemble" with the monument and belongs to the same owner. In the absence of a definition, it is best to document this coherence (history of the estate, easements, use) before putting the property on the market.

A contested text: the criticisms and arguments at play

Article 37 was adopted by the National Assembly by 59 votes to 52, which is enough to gauge the controversy. The criticisms focus on four points.

Property rights. In 2014, the legislature accompanied partial pre-emption with compensation to address the reservations of the Conseil d'État. The 2026 law removes this lever for non-contiguous property without providing any compensation. In the Senate, the amendment seeking deletion argued that "forced partial pre-emption" constitutes "a disproportionate infringement of property rights"; in the National Assembly, article 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man was invoked. As the Constitutional Council did not examine the article, the question remains open and could be raised through a priority question of constitutionality at the first dispute.

The argument that there is no loss of value. The government maintains that "the non-pre-emptable property runs no risk of losing value since it remains surrounded by its unbuilt area". This argument is debatable. On the market of leisure buyers, precisely the one the law targets, a house sold with fifteen hectares of meadows, even distant ones, is worth more than a house on its own. The loss of value exists; it is shifted onto the non-farming buyer, which may be the objective, but that is not the same thing as its absence.

The vagueness of contiguity. In 2025, the government had rejected the Dufau bill in particular because the concept of "immediate outbuildings" seemed too vague to it. The criterion adopted in 2026 is no less so, and it alone determines whether the seller's safeguards are lost or retained.

A text judged both excessive and insufficient. The Association of Mayors of France sees in it a "considerably strengthened" power for the Safers at the expense of local competences. Conversely, the authors of the measure consider it incomplete since contiguous property, the most common situation, remains outside its scope, and the more ambitious Dufau bill is still pending in the Senate. The FNSafer itself, through its president Emmanuel Hyest, had warned in 2025 "against any dispossession of owners". No in-depth doctrinal analysis (notarial journals, French Association of Rural Law) had yet been published in early September 2026.

What next? Towards an extension to contiguous property

Three signals point to a further step. The amendments on contiguous property failed by only eleven votes. The government must submit a report to Parliament on extending pre-emption to partial transfers of shares in agricultural companies, a subject already struck down twice by the Constitutional Council. Lastly, the FNSafer publishes hidden-consumption figures every spring that feed the debate. For anyone preparing a mixed rural sale in 2027, the prospect of further tightening cannot be ruled out, but it is not a foregone conclusion: the constitutional constraint that limited the 2026 text to non-contiguous property has not gone away.

Conclusion

The law of 18 August 2026 does not widen the Safer's right of partial pre-emption; it takes away from the seller, for land not contiguous with the house alone, the weapon that rendered it ineffective. Contiguity thus becomes the central question in any rural sale combining a house and land, and it is a question the law does not answer. Before putting a property on the market or signing a preliminary agreement, have the exact position of the parcels established, provide for the clauses that link or unlink the lots, and allow for pre-emption periods that can now exceed three months.

Frequently asked questions

Can the Safer pre-empt my land without my house?
Yes, if the land is not contiguous with the house: since 20 August 2026 it is the subject of a separate notification and an ordinary pre-emption. If it is contiguous, the Safer may propose a partial pre-emption, but you can require it to buy the whole or claim compensation.

What does "non-contiguous" mean?
The law does not define it. The parliamentary debates refer to property that is "physically distant", separated for example by a road or a stream. Intermediate situations (rural track, ditch, intervening parcel) will be settled by practice and the courts.

Can I still require the Safer to buy everything?
Yes, for a single sale of contiguous property, and for listed or registered historic monuments with their coherent land, as well as remarkable gardens. No, for non-contiguous land, which constitutes a distinct operation.

Does the law apply to a preliminary agreement signed before 20 August 2026?
The law contains no transitional provision for this article. Under ordinary law, the new notification rule applies to notifications sent to the Safer after its entry into force, whatever the date of the preliminary agreement. If in doubt, consult your notaire before notification.

Is my ornamental garden affected?
A garden adjoining the house is contiguous by nature and remains within the single sale. Only gardens holding the "jardin remarquable" label benefit from an express exception.

What happens if the Safer asks to inspect?
The pre-emption period is suspended until the inspection or until your refusal, and the Safer has at least one month after the period resumes. You may refuse, but refusal does not block pre-emption and may weigh in any challenge to the price.

Find out more

• What if the SAFER pre-empts?: how the right of pre-emption works in general, time limits and remedies.
• Can the SAFER impose a sale price?: pre-emption with price revision, now applicable to land notified separately.
• Can you sell agricultural land without going through the SAFER?: the exemptions and alternatives that remain valid after the 2026 law.
• Farm for sale: the complete buyer's guide: the stages of an acquisition, from mandate to deed.