The yard may retain the boat until paid, even against an owner who did not order the work, provided the claim arose in connection with that boat. It nevertheless has no useful rank on the sale price, and its claim for payment is time-barred one year after acceptance of the work.
The final invoice is 40% above the quotation, the owner disputes it, the yard replies that it will keep the boat until it is paid, and the season starts in three weeks. From that point, two mistakes are made almost every time: the owner pays under protest, telling himself he will argue later, or he settles into a stand-off that will cost him more than the amount in dispute.
Neither is necessary. The right of retention is a powerful mechanism, but it has conditions and limits, and above all an Achilles heel that yards often overlook: it confers no priority, and it does not interrupt limitation.
What founds retention, and what does not
Contrary to what is often believed, the Transport Code contains no right of retention specific to ship repairers. The section on liens over the ship says nothing about it. A yard that keeps a boat acts under the ordinary law, that is article 2286 of the Civil Code, under which a right of retention over a thing may be claimed by a person to whom the thing was handed over until payment of its claim, a person whose unpaid claim arises from the contract obliging it to deliver the thing, a person whose unpaid claim arose in connection with holding the thing, and the beneficiary of a non-possessory pledge. The same text adds that the right of retention is lost by voluntary relinquishment.
Two immediate consequences. The first is that retention requires a connection between the claim and the thing: the yard may retain for work done on this boat, not for a debt arising from another job or another boat of the same client. The second is that a yard that lets the vessel leave, even by oversight, loses everything: it becomes an ordinary unsecured creditor again, and I have seen files turn on a departure manoeuvre authorised by an overly accommodating workshop manager.
Retention can be raised against the owner, even if he ordered nothing
This is the point that surprises owners, and it is well established. The Cour de cassation holds that the right of retention is a real right, enforceable against everyone, including third parties who are not liable for the debt, and that it may be exercised for any claim arising in connection with the thing retained (Cass. 1re civ., 7 January 1992, no. 90-14.545, published; Cass. com., 17 February 2021, no. 19-11.132, published). In the latter case, the retainer was able to raise its right against the lessor under a finance lease, owner of the thing and a stranger to the debt.
An owner who discovers that the manager, the charterer or the hirer ordered work that it did not pay for is therefore exposed. His room for argument is not on enforceability but on whether the handover was proper and on the extent of the claim for which the boat is retained. Article L. 5114-7 of the Transport Code also provides a useful foothold, by reserving the case of an owner dispossessed by an unlawful act where the creditor is not in good faith.
Retention is not a lien, and that is the yard’s weakness
A yard that retains holds the vessel. It does not hold the price.
The maritime liens of article L. 5114-8 of the Transport Code are exhaustively listed, and the repairer appears only in 6°, in a narrow case: claims arising from contracts made by the master outside the home port, under his statutory powers, for the real needs of preserving the ship or continuing the voyage. Ordinary repairs ordered by the owner from his usual yard do not fall within that case.
As a rule, then, the yard has only an ordinary-law lien, that of article 2332, 2° of the Civil Code, which gives priority over a movable to the costs of preserving it. Yet article L. 5114-14 of the Transport Code states that creditors may rely on ordinary-law liens, but that claims so privileged rank only after mortgages, whatever the registration rank of the latter, whereas the maritime liens of article L. 5114-8 rank ahead of any mortgage under article L. 5114-13. On a financed yacht, where the bank mortgage sometimes represents 70% of the value, this means a forced sale would leave the yard with nothing.
Its strength is therefore possession, and nothing else. That imbalance should be exploited in negotiation, because a well-advised yard knows that lengthy litigation leaves it holding a boat that deteriorates, for which it is responsible, and whose sale will not pay it.
Storage charges during retention
The retained boat takes up space, requires handling and needs watching. The yard charges for it. It is entitled to do so, since custody of the vessel is ancillary to the contract for works and presumed to be for payment between professionals, and article L. 5114-8, 2° of the Transport Code in fact lists among privileged claims the costs of custody and preservation since the ship entered the last port.
But the coin has a reverse side, and it is rarely invoked. Whoever holds the vessel is liable for it as custodian. A hull left eighteen months ashore without protection, engines not winterised, osmosis developing, a deck turning grey: these are all claims of the owner against the yard, and they serve both as set-off and as negotiating leverage. Having the condition of the vessel recorded by a surveyor at the start of the retention is not a comfort measure. It is what makes discussion possible eighteen months later. The file I see most often in fact unfolds like this: an owner who refuses to pay a forty thousand euro overrun on a quotation of one hundred and twenty thousand, a yard that immobilises a boat worth two million and, to make its point, hauls it out and leaves it on a cradle without a cover, a season lost on both sides, and then, after two winters, a survey that puts the deterioration at more than the original claim, so that the party that thought it held the security ends up owing money to the one it wanted to pressure.
Getting out: what works, and what is wrongly believed
A first clarification, which disposes of a frequent shortcut. Articles L. 511-1 and L. 512-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures, which allow the court to lift a protective measure and provide that an irrevocable bank guarantee leads to release, govern protective attachment, not retention. A yard that retains a boat has made no attachment: it exercises a real right which, under article 2286 of the Civil Code, is only lost by voluntary relinquishment. Offering a bank guarantee is therefore not enough, in itself, to obtain the return of the boat.
What works is more down to earth.
Depositing with a third party, escrow agent or lawyer, the sum claimed or an agreed fraction, against immediate return. This is the fastest route, and it can be negotiated in a few days when both parties understand that time is working against them both.
Summary proceedings, next, under article 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows the court to order the protective or restorative measures needed to end a manifestly unlawful disturbance, and to order performance of an obligation, even one to do something, where it is not seriously disputable. Return is obtained where retention is exercised for a claim that is manifestly excessive, unconnected or extinguished. I write manifestly deliberately: the summary judge will not decide a technical debate on the quality of the work.
Finally, a court-ordered expert investigation under article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure, requested before any trial, which records the condition of the vessel and the real cost of the work, and which shifts the balance of power because it turns a unilateral invoice into a matter for adversarial discussion. Since the decree of 8 July 2025, the same article specifies the court to be seized: at the applicant’s choice, the court that could hear the case on the merits or the court in whose district the measure is to be carried out. For a boat retained at Port-Vendres by a yard with its seat in Bordeaux, that choice is not neutral.
A last route, often neglected, is to turn the weapon around. An owner with a claim of his own, for delay, damage or defective work, may apply for a protective measure over the yard’s assets under article L. 511-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. The psychological effect far exceeds the legal effect.
Challenging the invoice, and the myth of the mandatory quotation
On the merits, the discussion almost always concerns work that was not ordered or an overrun that was not approved. The principle is simple: no order, no claim, so no connection and no retention for that item. The yard can only retain up to the value of work actually ordered, which means reconstructing the repair orders, the email exchanges and the approvals of variations.
Where the owner is a consumer, the pre-contractual information obligations of article L. 111-1 of the Consumer Code are added, requiring the essential characteristics of the service and its price to be communicated before the consumer is bound, as is the price information obligation of article L. 112-1.
One point deserves to be stated clearly, because the opposite is often written: to my knowledge there is no text requiring shipyards to give a prior written quotation comparable to the one required in car repairs. The car repair regime does not carry over. What protects the owner is the general duty of information and, above all, proof of what was ordered.
The weapon yards forget: limitation
Here is the rule that decides more files than all the others. Article L. 110-4 of the Commercial Code provides, in II, 3°, that a claim for payment for work done is time-barred one year after acceptance of the work, and, in II, 2°, that a claim for the supply of materials and other things needed for the construction, equipment and victualling of the ship is time-barred one year after the supplies were made. Paragraph I, which sets the five-year limitation period for obligations between traders or between traders and non-traders, only applies where there is no shorter special period. Where the owner is a consumer, article L. 218-2 of the Consumer Code also confines the professional’s claim to two years.
Retention does not interrupt limitation. A yard that keeps a boat for eighteen months without issuing proceedings may therefore be holding a vessel for a claim that has become unenforceable, and an owner who realises this changes his position in the discussion overnight. I should say, in fairness, that the application of II, 3° to ship repairs, as opposed to construction work alone, should be argued rather than assumed: the text refers to work done, published case law on this precise point is rare, and that is exactly why the point should be raised early.
Conversely, maritime liens are extinguished after one year, reduced to six months for supply claims under 6° of article L. 5114-8, under article L. 5114-17 of the Transport Code, and they follow the vessel into whoever’s hands it passes under article L. 5114-18. A buyer who purchases a boat coming out of a yard without checking these points is buying a dispute.
If the yard goes all the way
A forced sale requires an arrest. Article L. 5114-22 of the Transport Code allows any person whose claim appears well founded in principle to ask the court for permission to arrest the vessel, article L. 5114-21 then prohibiting the arrested vessel from leaving port unless the enforcement judge authorises one or more specified voyages on proof of sufficient security. Enforcement arrest is preceded by a demand for payment, the sale is ordered by a judgment setting the reserve price and conditions, and it takes place by public auction at the judge’s hearing, under articles L. 5114-23 to L. 5114-25. A judicial sale extinguishes liens, as provided in article L. 5114-19, 2°.
This path is long and costly, and it brings the yard back to its rank, that is behind the bank. All the more reason to prefer an agreement.
A clarification on the 2026 reform
A confusion has been circulating since the spring. Ordinance no. 2026-265 of 8 April 2026, in force since 1 May 2026, enacts the legislative part of the Customs Code; along the way, it moved to the Transport Code the provisions on ship mortgages that had until then been in the Customs Code. It did not touch the maritime liens of articles L. 5114-7 et seq., nor arrest under articles L. 5114-20 et seq., nor of course article 2286 of the Civil Code. For the question at hand, nothing has changed. On the other hand, contracts and letters that referred to the former articles of the Customs Code on mortgages need updating.
What the firm does
We act quickly, because in this type of dispute speed is an argument. A reasoned formal notice on connection and amount, a report on the condition of the vessel, a costed deposit proposal and, if the yard digs in, summary proceedings for return of the boat combined with an application for a court expert. In parallel, we always check two things that are looked at too late: the date of acceptance of the work, for limitation, and the registrations on the vessel, to know who will be paid if the file goes as far as a sale.
We also advise yards, and our advice to them is the mirror image: retaining without suing is the best way to lose a claim while keeping it in sight.
Further reading: Port State detention of a ship in France: release and appeals.
Frequently asked questions
Can a yard really keep my boat?
Yes, if it can show an unpaid claim arising in connection with holding the vessel or from the contract obliging it to return it, under article 2286 of the Civil Code. Retention is a real right enforceable against everyone, but it requires a connection with the boat retained and is lost by voluntary relinquishment.
Can the yard retain my boat for a debt of my hirer or manager?
In principle yes: the Cour de cassation holds the right of retention enforceable even against third parties not liable for the debt (Cass. 1re civ., 7 January 1992, no. 90-14.545; Cass. com., 17 February 2021, no. 19-11.132). The discussion then turns on whether the handover was proper and on the amount retained.
Does a bank guarantee oblige the yard to return the boat?
No, not automatically. The release against security mechanism of articles L. 511-1 and L. 512-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures concerns protective attachment, not retention. Return is obtained by agreement, by deposit or by a decision of the summary judge.
Do I have to pay the disputed invoice to get the vessel back?
Not necessarily. Depositing the disputed sum with an escrow agent or a lawyer, against return of the boat, preserves the argument on the merits while freeing the boat. It is the fastest solution in most files.
Who pays for storage during retention?
The owner, in principle, since custody is ancillary to the contract for works and custody and preservation costs are among the privileged claims in article L. 5114-8, 2° of the Transport Code. In return, the yard is liable for the condition of the vessel as custodian, which gives the owner a claim if it deteriorates.
Does the yard benefit from a maritime lien?
Rarely. Article L. 5114-8, 6° of the Transport Code only covers claims arising from contracts made by the master outside the home port for the real needs of preserving the ship or continuing the voyage. Otherwise the yard has only an ordinary-law lien, which ranks after mortgages under article L. 5114-14.
Within what period must the yard sue for payment?
One year after acceptance of the work, under article L. 110-4, II, 3° of the Commercial Code, and two years where the client is a consumer, under article L. 218-2 of the Consumer Code. Retention does not interrupt limitation.
Can the yard have my boat sold?
Only at the end of an arrest procedure: court permission for the protective arrest under article L. 5114-22 of the Transport Code, a demand for payment, a judgment setting the reserve price and a public auction under articles L. 5114-23 to L. 5114-25. A judicial sale extinguishes liens.
Hervé Guyader, avocat at the Paris Bar, doctor of law.