A marina berth cannot be bought: the amodiation or usage guarantee contract confers a temporary and precarious right to occupy the public domain, governed by the concession and the port regulations. Fee increases, transfer of the berth and non-renewal follow precise rules, reviewed by the administrative courts.
Fifteen years ago, you paid forty thousand euros for a berth in a Côte d’Azur marina, on a document called a usage guarantee or amodiation contract. You thought you had bought something. This year, the operator announces a 30% increase in the fee, reminds you that you may neither let nor transfer your berth without its consent, and tells you that the concession is expiring and the new concession holder will not necessarily take over your contract.
Boat owners’ disappointment in this situation stems from a misunderstanding that marinas’ commercial documents readily encourage: you do not buy a berth, because a marina is public property and nobody owns anything there. What you obtain is a right of use, temporary and precarious, governed by precise texts, which nonetheless offers real protection to those who know how to assert it. Here is how that right works, what the operator may do, what it may not do, and before which court disagreements are settled.
What you get, and what you do not get
A marina, whether run directly by the municipality or granted under concession to a mixed-economy company, a chamber of commerce or a private company, is part of the public domain. The General Code of Public Property draws three consequences that every boat owner should read before signing. Nobody may occupy the public domain without a title (article L. 2122-1). Occupation can only be temporary (article L. 2122-2). And the authorisation is precarious and revocable (article L. 2122-3). The amodiation contract, the usage guarantee, the annual berth contract, whatever their name and presentation, are all titles to occupy the public domain subject to these rules.
The Transport Code governs the matter for decentralised ports, that is almost all marinas, which belong to municipalities, departments, regions or their groupings. Since Decree no. 2023-1231 of 21 December 2023, two regimes coexist.
The first is the ordinary berth. Article R. 5314-31 provides that exclusive use of berths for pleasure craft may not be granted for more than one year, renewable each year under conditions set by the competent authority, the period being extended to five years for marine trade and repair businesses and for sports and leisure associations. The authority sets by resolution the proportion of berths reserved for visiting boats. The annual contract gives no vested right to renewal: this is public domain precariousness in its clearest form.
The second is the usage guarantee. Article R. 5314-34 allows usage guarantees for mooring berths or moorings to be granted for a maximum of thirty-five years, in return for a contribution to financing works, buildings or equipment related to the operation of the port or likely to contribute to its development, and forming part of the public domain. The same article requires the contract to provide that the right attached to the guarantee can only be let through the port operator or with its consent. The maximum of thirty-five years is also the period set by article R. 5314-30 for any agreement to occupy the port public domain.
The usage guarantee is therefore neither ownership, nor a lease, nor a co-ownership share. It is the right to access a berth matching the size of one’s boat for the agreed period, in return for an initial contribution and an annual fee. The Conseil d’État recalled this in the most concrete way in the Propriano port case: the contract that allocated a precisely located berth to a boat owner, whereas the concession agreement only allowed access to a berth in a defined zone of the port, was a commitment the concession holder could not normally make, and the municipality was not bound to honour it (CE, Section, 19 December 2014, no. 368294, Commune de Propriano). Many contracts in circulation on the Mediterranean coast, drawn up in the 1990s and 2000s, promise a numbered berth. They are worth what the concession agreement that authorises them is worth, and no more.
Transferring, letting, passing on: what the contract must provide
The question that comes up most is the asset value of the usage guarantee, because owners have invested in it and expect to get their money back. The text is clear on one point: the right may only be let through the operator or with its consent, and a contract that does not say so is irregular. On transfer, the decree is silent, and the contract decides, under the control of the operator, which usually requires its approval and sometimes charges a transfer fee. Passing the right to heirs depends on the same stipulation.
Two lessons from case law limit these practices. The first is that being a shareholder of a concession company, in ports whose capital has been opened to users, does not in itself confer any right to occupy the public domain without paying the fee, since the company’s articles cannot derogate from the concession specifications (Cass. 3e civ., 29 September 2010, no. 09-16.547). The second is that the operator may charge current users only for expenditure from which they are likely to benefit: the Conseil d’État annulled the fixed annual contribution over thirty-five years that the city of Marseille had imposed on the boat owners of its ports to finance the extension of the Frioul port and eight hundred new berths, works incapable of bringing any extra benefit to existing users (CE, 2 February 1996, no. 149427). A port that charges for usage guarantees to finance works unrelated to the berths concerned exposes itself to the same censure.
The most authoritative commentators point out that the regime resulting from the 2023 decree leaves serious questions open: what happens to the contribution if the works are not carried out, compensation for a holder whose berth disappears in a redevelopment, and the exact nature of the right granted (V. Prud’homme and R. Rézenthel, La garantie d’usage des postes d’amarrage : une réforme incomplète, DMF 2024, no. 865, p. 162; R. Rézenthel, Les ports de plaisance et le contexte financier, Lexbase, Le Quotidien, 2 September 2025). These questions are currently settled by the contract, which means they are settled against the boat owner when the contract does not deal with them.
Fee increases: what the operator must respect
Any occupation of the public domain gives rise to a fee (article L. 2125-1 of the General Code of Public Property), whose amount takes into account the advantages of any kind provided to the holder of the authorisation (article L. 2125-3). The fee for a berth is therefore not a freely set rent: it must remain in proportion to the advantage provided, which rules out increases unrelated to the value of the service, and it must respect equality between users in the same situation.
The Transport Code imposes a procedure. Rates and conditions of use of equipment and port dues are among the matters on which the port council must be consulted (article R. 5314-22), and changing them requires the proposed provisions to be posted for fifteen days in the places in the port frequented by users, followed by consultation of the council (articles R. 5314-9 and R. 5314-10). In municipal ports, boat owners are represented by three members appointed by the local committee of permanent port users (article R. 5314-17), which brings together holders of amodiation or usage guarantee contracts and holders of berth rental titles of more than six months, meets at least once a year and receives the port’s budget (article R. 5314-19). A boat owner who has never registered on that committee’s list deprives himself of the only place where the increase is discussed before it is decided.
The marina equipment fee is subject to an allocation rule: its proceeds may only be used for expenditure in the interest of pleasure boating relating to the construction, improvement, renewal and maintenance of the port’s equipment (article R. 5321-17). An increase intended to finance something else can be challenged on that basis.
The challenge takes two forms. The resolution or decision setting the rates is an administrative act, open to an application for annulment within two months of its publication or posting, and its illegality can later be raised by way of objection in a dispute over an invoice. Where a rate is annulled, the previous rates come back into force (Cass. com., 19 December 2018, no. 17-27.235). The boat owner may not, however, stop paying: non-payment is the most frequent ground for termination, and the hardest to challenge.
Termination and non-renewal: precariousness, but not arbitrariness
The operator has two sets of powers. For reasons relating to the user, the contract and the special port police regulations, on which the port council is consulted (article R. 5314-22, 7°), define the breaches punished by termination: unpaid fees, subletting without consent, lack of insurance, an abandoned boat, failure to follow safety or mooring instructions. Termination must follow the contractual procedure, with formal notice and a time limit, and the court reviews the ground.
For reasons relating to the port, public domain precariousness allows occupation to be ended for a reason of general interest, redevelopment of the basin, works, reallocation of berths. The holder of a usage guarantee who paid a contribution for thirty-five years and loses the berth before the end is entitled to compensation, whose extent depends on the contract; the holder of an annual contract is only entitled to the end of the year.
Non-renewal of an annual contract need not be justified by a fault, but it may not be discriminatory or unrelated to the interest of the service, and the waiting list must be managed with equal treatment of applicants. A boat owner ousted in favour of a larger or more profitable boat, without any published rule, has a remedy.
There remains a change of concession holder. The Commune de Propriano decision lays down the rule: where a contract for the performance of a public service is terminated, for whatever reason, the public body automatically replaces its former contracting partner for the performance of the contracts concluded with users, with the sole exception of commitments abnormally made, that is those that a reasonable interpretation of the concession agreement did not allow to be made in view of their purpose, conditions of performance or duration. The substitution does not transfer debts and claims arising from earlier performance. The holder of a regular usage guarantee therefore keeps the right against the municipality, then against the new concession holder; the holder of a contract that the former concession holder had no power to conclude keeps only a liability claim against the latter, if it still exists.
The boat that no longer sails
For some years ports have been hunting down boats that never leave their berths, and they have tools for this that the absent owner discovers too late. The port police regulations may impose an obligation to sail or to be present on board, and penalise a boat that never goes out. Above all, where a vessel becomes a danger or an obstruction, article L. 5141-2-1 of the Transport Code allows the port authority, after giving the owner formal notice to end the danger within a set time, to intervene at the owner’s cost and risk, and of its own motion in an emergency. A boat that sinks at her berth or whose mooring lines part in a storm falls within this framework, and the bill for the intervention comes on top of termination. Finally, an owner who does not respond to formal notices is exposed to the procedure for forfeiture of ownership of abandoned vessels under articles L. 5141-3 et seq. of the same Code.
Before which court
This is the point on which boat owners, and sometimes their advisers, most often go wrong. Disputes relating to authorisations or contracts involving occupation of the public domain, whatever their form or name, granted or concluded by public bodies or their concession holders, and disputes about the principle or amount of public domain occupation fees, are brought before the administrative courts (article L. 2331-1 of the General Code of Public Property). A usage guarantee contract signed with a private concession company therefore falls to the administrative court, and the Propriano case illustrates this: the boat owner sued the municipality before the administrative judge.
The division is not total, however. Operating a marina is an industrial and commercial public service (CE, 13 December 2002, no. 248591), and relations between such a service and its users are governed by private law: where the dispute concerns not the occupation title or the fee but damage caused to the boat in the course of the port’s services, for example damage due to a defective finger pontoon or a manoeuvre by staff, the ordinary courts alone have jurisdiction over the user’s claim against the operator and those taking part in performing the service (T. confl., 11 December 2017, no. C4101). Choosing the wrong court costs a year and a decision declining jurisdiction.
What the firm does
We review usage guarantee and amodiation contracts before they are signed or transferred, to check what they really promise in the light of the concession agreement, and we assist boat owners and users’ associations in challenging fee increases, before the port council and then before the administrative court. We also act when the concession holder changes, to obtain the takeover of existing contracts or compensation for those that will not be taken over, and we defend owners facing termination or an abandonment procedure. Port operators who wish to secure their standard contracts under the 2023 decree will find the same expertise with us.
For a complete picture, our practical guide Operating a yacht in France: charter, crew, berth, accidents, what rules and what risks? brings together the ten building blocks of a lawful operation, from commercial status to crew contracts, berth and insurance; it can be downloaded free of charge. To have your own situation reviewed, contact the firm.
Frequently asked questions
Do I own my marina berth?
No. A marina is part of the public domain, over which nobody can hold ownership rights. You hold an occupation title, temporary, precarious and revocable within the meaning of articles L. 2122-2 and L. 2122-3 of the General Code of Public Property, even if your contract is called amodiation or usage guarantee.
What is the maximum duration of a berth contract?
One year, renewable, for an ordinary berth for a pleasure boat, and five years for marine businesses and associations (article R. 5314-31 of the Transport Code). A usage guarantee may be granted for up to thirty-five years, in return for a contribution to financing works or equipment of the port (article R. 5314-34).
Can I let or transfer my usage guarantee?
Letting the right is only possible through the port operator or with its consent, and the contract must say so (article R. 5314-34 of the Transport Code). Transfer and passing the right to heirs depend on the terms of the contract, which usually require the operator’s approval.
Can the port increase my fee as it likes?
No. The fee must take account of the advantages provided (article L. 2125-3 of the General Code of Public Property), changing the rates requires fifteen days’ posting and consultation of the port council (articles R. 5314-9, R. 5314-10 and R. 5314-22 of the Transport Code), and the equipment fee may only finance expenditure in the interest of pleasure boating (article R. 5321-17). The rate decision can be challenged before the administrative court within two months.
What happens to my contract if the port changes concession holder?
The public body automatically replaces the former concession holder for the performance of contracts concluded with users, except for commitments abnormally made, that is those the concession agreement did not allow, such as the exclusive allocation of a numbered berth where only access to a zone was authorised (CE, Section, 19 December 2014, no. 368294, Commune de Propriano).
Can the port terminate my contract because my boat never sails?
Yes, if the special police regulations or the contract so provide, after formal notice. In case of danger or obstruction, article L. 5141-2-1 of the Transport Code also allows the port authority to intervene at the cost and risk of the owner given formal notice, and of its own motion in an emergency.
Does being a shareholder of the port company give me a right to a berth?
No. The Cour de cassation holds that the articles of the concession company cannot derogate from the concession specifications and that being a shareholder does not confer the right to occupy the port public domain without paying the fees (Cass. 3e civ., 29 September 2010, no. 09-16.547).
Which court has jurisdiction over a dispute with the port?
The administrative court for any dispute about the occupation title, its termination or the fee, even if the contract was concluded with a private concession holder (article L. 2331-1 of the General Code of Public Property). The ordinary courts for damage caused to your boat in the course of the port’s services, an industrial and commercial public service whose relations with users are governed by private law (T. confl., 11 December 2017, no. C4101).
Hervé Guyader, avocat at the Paris Bar, doctor of law.
To challenge a fee increase or a termination, the firm can be reached through its contact form.
On the same subject, the status of the vessel: illegal charter and its consequences; incidents at sea: assistance and towage at sea; damage: accidents on board a yacht.