Will Isabelle and Patrick Balkany be able to spend their old days in their family home, the Cossy mill in Giverny (Eure)? Nothing is less sure. In any case, they will be set on May 7, the day when the Court of Cassation will render its decision on the future of this 19th century building, located on 4 hectares of land, not far from Claude Monet's house. A real story with episodes, as the ten-room mill, shabby but very pleasant, has already almost escaped their attention.
Penultimate episode to date therefore: the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal rendered in January 2023, according to which the usufruct of the mill is confiscated from the Balkany spouses. Usufruct only, because the couple, who ruled Levallois for decades, have not owned the walls for a long time. In 1996, Patrick and Isabelle Balkany made a perfectly regular donation-sharing for the benefit of their two children, who thus became bare owners of the mill. The couple, usufructuary, can for their part enjoy the home for life.
Also read: Patrick Balkany returns in a clip by Arno Santamaria
It is against this decision confiscating the usufruct that the Balkanys appealed to the Court of Cassation. The highest court examined the appeal on Wednesday March 27. The decision was reserved and will therefore be rendered in six weeks. If the senior magistrates reject the appeal, it will be a severe blow for the deposed baron of Levallois and Hauts-de-Seine and his wife. Neither of them plans to leave the place. In any case, implementing such a confiscation would be a strange headache. The residence would revert to the State, but what would it do with it?
“A legal incongruity”
Especially since the mill, as magnificent as it is, requires expensive maintenance. Then confiscate the usufruct, which will be assessed financially, to add to the pot and maintain the property in question. Expelling the Balkany couple, at their ages (75 and 76), and both in poor health, also seems unthinkable.
“Confiscation would be a dismemberment of property. If the State finds itself usufructuary of the Balkany children, this coupling between natural persons and the State would be a legal incongruity”, estimates Me Bertrand Périer, lawyer for Isabelle Balkany at the Court of Cassation.
In fact, if the usufruct is really confiscated, the solution would be to have it evaluated to offer the bare-owner children the opportunity to buy it back. But “having it bought back from the children to keep their parents there would be a profound injustice,” comments Me Périer.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal may only be partially overturned
If, on the contrary, the Court of Cassation overturns the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal of January 2023, it is the return to the Court of Appeal, which will have to decide again. The senior magistrates can also decide to overturn the January 2023 judgment only partially, on the mill or the other points raised by the lawyers. Including the conviction of the Balkany spouses to pay 400,000 euros to the State for the sums spent to carry out the investigations. This they contest since the cost of judicial investigations never rests on the litigants.
A first decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, which had already been the subject of an appeal, had set this sentence for the benefit of the State at one million euros, ultimately reduced to 400,000. Likewise, before confiscating the usufruct, the court of appeal had confiscated the entire property. Decision that the highest court had overturned. But the court of appeal did not abandon the mill in deciding to confiscate the usufruct.