The tribunal de proximité (formerly the tribunal d'instance) deals with the small civil disputes of daily life.

The local court depends on the Judicial Court.

It judges all cases where the sums are less than 10,000 euros:

These include:

  • litigation related to road accidents,
  • conflicts related to the payment of condominium fees,
  • of unpaid debts,
  • non-conforming deliveries and poorly executed work,
  • claims for damages or reimbursement for a product and/or service

It is also conceivable that the local court may be given additional competences according to local needs by decision of the heads of courts (this may be the case in matters of family cases).

All these decisions of the local court are published on www.justice.fr

These courts are composed of judges of the judicial court and judges of the protection litigation who are competent in matters of guardianship, residential leases, consumer credit and overindebtedness.

A certain number of cases are also redirected by the local judges to Conciliators of Justice or Mediators.