Understanding the OLD: The Fifty-Metre Covenant

France’s Obligation Légale de Débroussaillement, the legal duty to clear brush, is one of the least visible, yet most consequential, rules shaping Riviera ownership today. On the Côte d’Azur, where pines, maquis and garrigue meet homes built into the landscape, the question is no longer whether the rule matters, but how seriously it should be taken.

There is a geometry to every great property on the Côte d’Azur that appears on no title deed. Stand on a terrace above Valbonne in late June, when the resin of the pines thickens the air and the cicadas begin their long argument with the heat, and you can almost trace it: an invisible perimeter radiating outward from the walls of the house. French law calls it the obligation légale de débroussaillement, or OLD, and for owners in exposed areas it has become one of the most important duties attached to the land.

An old idea with new teeth The principle is not new. It was built progressively into the French Forest Code over decades, refined text by text, as the South learned, sometimes brutally, what summer asks of those who live among the pines.

Then came the fires. The 2023 reform strengthening forest-fire prevention did not create the OLD; it sharpened it, reinforcing information, prevention and sanctions. Since 1 January 2025, the obligation has also entered the transaction itself: for properties in the zones concerned, it must be mentioned in the property advertisement, and the risk information file now includes dedicated OLD information for buyers and tenants. What was once a conversation for gardeners has become a conversation for notaries.

What the law actually asks The OLD concerns properties situated in, or within 200 metres of, woodland, maquis or garrigue exposed to fire risk. Around each building, the owner must generally maintain a 50‑metre perimeter, with local prescriptions capable of extending that distance to 100 metres, and official guidance also points to clearing requirements along private access lanes serving the house.

In urban planning zones, the logic can invert: the entire parcel may have to be maintained, whether built upon or not. In the Alpes-Maritimes, the applicable local texts remain the decisive reference, and the mairie or prefectural guidance should be checked for the commune concerned.

And clearing does not mean razing. The word débroussaillement is precise: reduce combustible undergrowth, remove dead wood, cut back the ground‑level tangle firefighters call “the ladder”, and break the continuity of vegetation so fire cannot travel easily from one crown to the next. Done properly, a maintained terrain débroussaillé still looks like Provence. It simply no longer behaves like kindling.