3
Legal categories of act for the tuteur: those done alone, those requiring prior authorisation from the juge des tutelles or conseil de famille, and those absolutely forbidden.
3 / 6
Months after opening of the tutelle within which the tuteur must transmit the inventory to the court — three months for moveable assets, six months for all other assets (C. civ. Art. 503 al. 1).
5 yrs
Prescription period for actions to render accounts, recover assets, or claim sums handled by the tuteur — running from the end of the protective measure (C. civ. Art. 515).

The Legal Framework: A Duty of Prudent, Diligent, and Informed Care

When a tutelle is opened for an adult, the tuteur takes over the management of that person's entire civil and patrimonial life. The statutory standard is demanding: the tuteur must bring "prudent, diligent, and informed care, acting exclusively in the interest of the protected person" (C. civ. Art. 496 al. 2). Any fault — not merely gross negligence or fraud, but any fault whatsoever — is sufficient to trigger personal liability in damages (C. civ. Art. 421). Where a fault causes harm to a third party, the tuteur faces tortious liability under the general civil responsibility rules as well (Cass. 1ère civ. 16-12-2015 n° 14-27.028 FS-PBI).

The tuteur represents the protected person for all civil acts. But that representation is not unlimited. The law of 5 March 2007 and the Decree of 22 December 2008 together establish a classification of acts — further detailed in an annex to that decree — that every tuteur must know before taking any significant decision. There are three tiers: acts done alone, acts requiring authorisation, and acts that are absolutely prohibited.

✓ Tuteur acts alone
  • Conservation acts
  • Administration acts necessary to manage the patrimony
  • Certain de-judiciarised dispositions (since 2019 reform)
⚠ Authorisation required
  • Disposition acts engaging the patrimony significantly
  • Real estate sales and contributions
  • Loans and transactions
  • Assurance-vie premium payments (confirmed 2020)
✕ Absolutely forbidden
  • Gratuitous disposals of any kind
  • Acquiring claims against the protected person
  • Operating a trade in their name
  • Transferring assets into a trust

Acts the Tuteur Can Carry Out Alone

Conservation Acts

The tuteur acts alone for all conservation acts — those designed to safeguard the protected person's patrimony or to rescue an asset from imminent risk or unavoidable depreciation, without compromising any of the owner's rights (C. civ. Art. 504 al. 1; Decree 2008-1484 Art. 3). Typical examples: paying a home insurance premium falling due, sending a formal demand for payment to a debtor, or carrying out urgent repairs on a property.

Administration Acts Necessary to Manage the Patrimony

The tuteur also acts alone for all administration acts necessary to manage the patrimony — defined as acts of exploitation or enhancement of the protected person's assets that carry no abnormal risk (Decree 2008-1484 Art. 1). A non-exhaustive list of acts always treated as administration includes:

For real estate: precarious occupancy arrangements; granting or renewing a lease of up to nine years conferring no renewal right on the tenant; useful maintenance work and improvements; terminating a residential tenancy as landlord.

For moveable assets, money, and financial instruments: opening a first bank account or savings passbook (C. civ. Art. 427 al. 4); collecting revenues; signing receipts for payments; requesting a withdrawal card (not a credit card — that is a disposition act); terminating an existing investment management contract; placing funds in an account (C. civ. Art. 501 al. 1); all transactions on current-use moveable assets and low-value items.

For gratuitous acts: accepting a succession or universal legacy on a net-assets basis; accepting an uncharged gift or particular legacy; filing the succession declaration; delivering legacies.

For other acts: patrimonial actions in court; concluding or renewing property and liability insurance contracts; voting in shareholder meetings for routine matters.

De-Judiciarised Disposition Acts (Since 2019)

The justice reform law of 23 March 2019 removed the prior court authorisation requirement for a number of acts previously classified as dispositions. These are now within the tuteur's autonomous powers:

  • Amicable partition: provided there is no conflict of interest between the tuteur and the protected person, the tuteur can carry this out without prior authorisation — though the liquidation account still requires the court's approval (C. civ. Art. 507).
  • Unconditional acceptance of a succession where the tuteur obtains a notarial certificate establishing that the assets manifestly exceed the liabilities (C. civ. Art. 507-1).
  • Investment management contract with a third party for the protected person's securities and financial instruments (C. civ. Art. 500 al. 3).
  • Bank account modifications at the protected person's habitual bank: modifying existing accounts, closing accounts opened during the tutelle, and opening a new account at the same bank can all be carried out without authorisation (C. civ. Art. 427 al. 1).

Acts Requiring Prior Authorisation

A disposition act is one that commits the protected person's patrimony — for present or future purposes — through a significant change in its content, a meaningful reduction in its capital value, or a lasting alteration of the rights attached to it (Decree 2008-1484 Art. 2). For such acts, the tuteur must petition the juge des tutelles (or the conseil de famille where one has been constituted) by formal request. The court has three months to respond once the request is received (CPC Art. 1229). The authorisation fixes the conditions and price at which the act may be carried out (C. civ. Art. 505 al. 2).

Real Estate

Every act affecting the protected person's home or secondary residence — other than a precarious occupancy arrangement — requires authorisation. This includes selling or contributing a property to a company, which additionally requires prior instruction by a technical expert or the opinion of at least two qualified professionals before the court can grant authorisation (C. civ. Art. 505 al. 4). Creating real rights (usufruct, mortgage), concluding or renewing commercial, rural, industrial, or mixed leases, and carrying out major repairs all require authorisation.

Buying or renting the protected person's property is subject to an even stricter rule: this is treated as an automatic conflict of interest, so the act must be concluded not by the tuteur at all but by the subrogé tuteur — or, absent one, by an ad hoc tuteur designated by the court (C. civ. Art. 508).

Financial and Commercial Assets

Opening an account or savings passbook at a new financial institution (as opposed to the person's habitual bank), closing accounts opened before the tutelle was opened, selling or contributing an unlisted business or financial instruments to a company (requiring expert or two-professional opinions), requesting a credit card, selling business furniture, and giving a business in management lease all require authorisation.

Succession, Donations, and Gratuitous Acts

Donating the protected person's assets; renouncing a succession or legacy; accepting a charged gift or particular legacy; and renouncing an action to reduce excessive gifts after a succession opens — all of these require the court's prior authorisation. Participating in an amicable partition where there is a conflict of interest, and approving the liquidation account, also require it.

Other Acts Requiring Authorisation

The court's prior authorisation is also required for: transactions and compromis concluded in the protected person's name (C. civ. Art. 506); actions in nullity, rescission, or reduction of acts previously carried out by the protected person (C. civ. Art. 465 al. 6); requesting a change of the protected person's matrimonial regime (C. civ. Art. 1397 al. 7); and contingency-fee lawyer's agreements tied to a proportional result (CE 16-6-2010 n° 325513).

The Assurance-Vie Premium Trap — Cour de Cassation Advisory Opinion 2020

The 2019 reform authorised tuteurs to place funds on a compte (account) without prior court authorisation (C. civ. Art. 501 al. 1 as amended). Many assumed this extended to paying premiums on the protected person's existing life insurance contract. The Cour de cassation ruled otherwise in December 2020 (Cass. 1ère civ. avis 18-12-2020 n° 20-70.003): an assurance-vie contract is not a bank account, and the 2008 Decree still classifies paying new premiums on a life insurance contract as an act of disposition. Paying premiums on a protected person's assurance-vie contract therefore remains — absent exceptional circumstances — an act of disposition requiring prior authorisation from the conseil de famille or the juge des tutelles. A tuteur who pays life insurance premiums without authorisation acts in excess of their powers and the act is null de plein droit.

Acts That Are Absolutely Forbidden

Certain acts are forbidden to the tuteur regardless of any court authorisation. No juge des tutelles can grant permission for these, and any such act — if carried out — is null de plein droit (C. civ. Art. 509).

Gratuitous Disposal of the Protected Person's Assets or Rights

The tuteur cannot make any gratuitous disposal of the protected person's property or rights. The law expressly lists — without limitation — gratuitous renunciation of an acquired right, anticipatory renunciation of a reduction action, releasing a mortgage or security without payment, and gratuitously creating a servitude or security to guarantee a third party's debt. This prohibition is absolute: no charitable impulse, no family sentiment, no claimed benefit to the protected person can override it.

Acquiring Claims Against the Protected Person

The tuteur cannot acquire from a third party any right or claim that the third party holds against the protected person. This rule targets the conflict of interest that would arise if the tuteur were to become a creditor of the very person they are charged to protect.

Operating a Trade or Liberal Profession in the Protected Person's Name

The tuteur cannot operate a trade or run a liberal professional activity on behalf of the protected person. The tuteur represents the major in civil life — not in commercial or professional life. The Cour de cassation has confirmed that the tuteur's representation powers do not extend to acting as director of a company managed by the protected person (Cass. 1ère civ. 12-7-2012 n° 11-13.161 FS-PBI).

Transferring Assets into a Trust (Patrimoine Fiduciaire)

The tuteur cannot transfer the protected person's assets or rights into a fiducie (trust structure). This prohibition is consistent with the general requirement that the protected person's assets remain individually identified and personally controlled — the depersonalisation that a trust structure creates is incompatible with that principle.

The Grey Zone: Acts That Change Category With Circumstances

The classification is not always fixed. Some acts that are ordinarily acts of administration can become acts of disposition — and therefore require authorisation — where they have "significant consequences on the content or value of the protected person's patrimony, their rights, or their way of life" (Decree 2008-1484 Art. 1). Portfolio arbitrages, granting payment extensions to the person's debtors, exercising voting rights in company meetings, and concluding or terminating employment contracts are all classified this way — the tuteur must assess the circumstances and decide whether the specific act crosses into disposition territory. The tuteur's assessment of these borderline cases carries the full weight of their personal liability.

The Protected Person's Accounts: Mandatory Individualisation

A fundamental obligation underpins all financial management under the tutelle: every banking and payment operation must be carried out exclusively through accounts opened in the protected person's own name (C. civ. Art. 427 al. 5). It is specifically prohibited for a professional tutelle organisation to pool the funds of multiple protected persons in a single "pivot account" and generate income for itself from that pool — all revenues and capital gains on the protected person's funds must revert exclusively to that person (C. civ. Art. 427 al. 6).

Additionally, all capital receivable by the protected person must be paid directly into an account opened solely in their name and flagged as subject to the tutelle (C. civ. Art. 498). The debtor must pay directly — transiting funds through the tuteur's own account, even temporarily, is not permitted.

The Inventory Obligation

Within three months of the tutelle opening (for moveable assets) and six months (for all other assets), the tuteur must have an inventory of the protected person's patrimony drawn up and transmit it to the court, together with the provisional budget for the tutelle (C. civ. Art. 503 al. 1). If a subrogé tuteur has been designated, the inventory is carried out in their presence.

The tuteur has the right to access all information and documents necessary for the inventory from any public or private entity — banking secrecy and professional secrecy cannot be invoked against them (C. civ. Art. 503 al. 2). The inventory must contain: a description of household moveable assets; valuations of real estate and moveable assets worth more than €1,500; designations of liquid funds; and a statement of all bank accounts, investments, and other securities (CPC Art. 1253 al. 2).

The inventory can be made by private document — but only if drawn up in the presence of two adult witnesses who are neither employed by nor related to the protected person or the tuteur (CPC Art. 1253 al. 1). Where the court deems it appropriate, it can designate a commissaire de justice or notaire to carry out the moveable assets inventory at the protected person's expense.

The consequences of a missing, incomplete, or inaccurate inventory are severe: the protected person or their heirs may prove the patrimony's composition and value by any means — the tuteur loses the benefit of any factual presumption about what was in the estate at the opening of the tutelle (C. civ. Art. 503 al. 4). A tuteur who is late transmitting the inventory can have its cost shifted to them personally. The inventory is not a one-time exercise — the tuteur must keep it updated throughout the entire duration of the tutelle.

The Annual Budget

The tuteur must draw up a budget for the tutelle — determining, in proportion to the importance of the assets and the complexity of their management, the annual sums needed for the person's upkeep and the reimbursement of administration costs (C. civ. Art. 500 al. 1). The tuteur informs the conseil de famille or the court. If the tuteur encounters difficulties in setting the budget, the court or conseil de famille determines it. Where the tuteur engages third-party specialists — for example a property manager or investment adviser — their remuneration can be included in the management costs, but the tuteur takes personal responsibility for that choice (C. civ. Art. 500 al. 2).

Annual Accounts and the Subrogé Tuteur's Role

The tuteur must produce an annual management account with supporting documents (C. civ. Art. 510 al. 1). To do so they can require annual bank statements from financial institutions, who cannot refuse on grounds of banking secrecy (C. civ. Art. 510 al. 2). Where multiple tuteurs have been appointed to manage the patrimony, each must sign the annual accounts — their signature constitutes approval.

The verification and approval of those accounts follows a hierarchy. Where a subrogé tuteur has been named, they verify and approve the accounts annually. Where a conseil de famille applies, the family council takes that role. Where neither exists, the court appoints a qualified professional — notaire, lawyer, accountant, commissaire aux comptes, or similar — to verify and approve the accounts (C. civ. Art. 512). The court may dispense the tuteur from submitting accounts for approval — or even from producing accounts at all — where the protected person's income or patrimony is modest, provided the tutelle is not in the hands of a professional mandataire (C. civ. Art. 513).

The Subrogé Tuteur: Watchdog, Not Adviser

The subrogé tuteur's mission is surveillance — of the tuteur's acts, not advisory support for their decisions (C. civ. Art. 454 al. 4). The Cour de cassation has specifically rejected an application by a would-be subrogé tuteur whose actual purpose was to serve as a consultant to the tuteur, holding that this is not within the functions of the role (Cass. 1ère civ. 5-3-2014 n° 13-11.651 F-D). The subrogé tuteur must be informed and consulted before any serious act by the tuteur, must alert the court without delay if they identify faults in the tuteur's management, and must attest to the court that capital investment has been carried out in accordance with the prescribed conditions (C. civ. Art. 497 al. 2).

The subrogé tuteur also steps in to represent the protected person where their interests conflict with those of the tuteur. In the absence of a subrogé tuteur in these conflict situations, the court must designate an ad hoc tuteur for the specific act (C. civ. Art. 455).

End of Mission: Final Accounts and the Five-Year Prescription

When the tutelle ends — by the person recovering capacity, their death, or a court mainlevée — the tuteur must produce a final management account covering all operations since the last annual account. They must deliver copies of the last five annual accounts and the final account within three months of the mission's end, to the person who has recovered their capacity, their new legal representative, or their heirs. All documents needed to continue the management or settle the succession must also be handed over, along with the original inventory and all updates (C. civ. Art. 514). The five-year prescription for claims arising from the tutelle runs from the date the protective measure ends — not the date the tuteur stopped acting in fact (C. civ. Art. 515).

Key Points: What Every Tuteur Managing a Protected Adult's Assets in France Must Know
The tuteur's legal standard is "prudent, diligent, and informed care, exclusively in the interest of the protected person" — any fault, however minor, triggers personal liability; there is no gross negligence threshold for tuteurs.
Acts are classified in three tiers: done alone (conservation and routine administration), requiring prior court authorisation (disposition acts), and absolutely forbidden (gratuitous disposals, acquiring claims against the person, trading in their name, fiducie transfers).
The 2019 justice reform de-judiciarised certain dispositions — amicable partition without conflict of interest, accepting a solvent succession with a notarial certificate, investment management contracts, and account modifications at the habitual bank are now within the tuteur's autonomous powers.
Paying premiums on the protected person's assurance-vie remains an act of disposition requiring court authorisation — the 2019 reform did not change this, and the Cour de cassation confirmed it in December 2020 (Cass. 1ère civ. avis 18-12-2020 n° 20-70.003); a tuteur who pays without authorisation acts in excess of their powers.
All financial operations must be conducted exclusively through accounts in the protected person's own name — pooling of funds by professional tutelle organisations is prohibited, and all investment income belongs exclusively to the protected person.
The inventory must be transmitted to the court within three months of opening for moveable assets and six months for others; it must be kept updated throughout the tutelle; a missing or defective inventory shifts the evidentiary burden on to the tuteur at the end of the mission.
Annual accounts are required, verified by the subrogé tuteur, conseil de famille, or a court-appointed qualified professional; the court may dispense from accounts for modest estates not managed by a professional mandataire.
The subrogé tuteur's role is surveillance and intervention in conflicts of interest — not advice to the tuteur; a person whose real purpose is to serve as consultant to the tuteur will be refused the designation (Cass. 1ère civ. 5-3-2014 n° 13-11.651 F-D).
On ending the mission, the tuteur has three months to deliver the final account, last five annual accounts, all supporting documents, and the inventory to the relevant successor; the five-year prescription on all account-rendering and recovery claims runs from the formal end of the measure (C. civ. Art. 515).
Where the tuteur's interests conflict with the protected person's on a specific act, the subrogé tuteur acts in the person's place; absent a subrogé tuteur, an ad hoc tuteur must be designated by the court — the tuteur cannot carry out the conflicted act themselves.
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This article is provided for general information and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice. The classification of acts and the obligations of tuteurs depend on the specific facts of each situation, the composition of the protected person's estate, and the specific terms of the court's appointment order. The act classification provided here is illustrative and not exhaustive — always consult the full annex to Decree 2008-1484 and seek advice from a qualified French notary or lawyer. Legal references are correct to the best of the author's knowledge as of the date of publication.