In a few years, Patrick Diter had transformed a modest bastide of 200 m2, acquired in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes), into a Renaissance style palace of 3,000 m2, with swimming pool and heliport, estimated by the tax authorities at 57 million euros. Condemned, after a judgment of the Court of Cassation, to demolish his "castle" deemed illegal, the owner finally obtained from the administrative court of Nice the restoration of his building permit.

Issued on May 31, the decision essentially acknowledges that "the intentional element of fraud is not characterized" in the building permit application filed in 2006. This decision has the effect of annulling a 2017 decree of the town hall of Grasse which annulled it for fraud, and thus to reinstate it.

Only 70% of buildings concerned

The judgment concerns approximately 70% of the area built by Patrick Diter, that is to say all the buildings built from 2005 and concerned by this regularization permit of 2006. That of the remaining 30%, including a road or the galleries of a cloister erected later, had been annulled by the administrative court of Marseille in 2012.

The Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence, in March 2019, then the Court of Cassation, in December 2020, had confirmed a decision taken at first instance in Grasse which condemned this owner to demolish his property, judging that the 2006 permit had been obtained fraudulently.

The demolition, which was to take place within eighteen months of the judgment of the Court of Cassation, under penalty of 500 euros per day of delay after this period, was never undertaken by the owner, nor by the services of the State, because of the procedure in progress before the administrative justice. Philippe Soussi and Louis Ribière, Patrick Diter's lawyers, believe that the divergence of interpretation between criminal justice and administrative justice "prohibits, for the time being, to consider any demolition".

The court of conflicts soon seized?

The administrative court of Nice seems to confirm the use of bulldozers on the land of Patrick Diter: "This judgment does not have the effect of going back on the demolitions ordered by the criminal judge," he says.

"There is a principle of law, the Court of Cassation has taken an irrevocable decision that is enforceable and final, and the State still has judicial authorization to restore the land," commented Virginie Lachaud-Dana, counsel of neighbors of the owner. The next step in this judicial Mi'kmaq could be an appeal to the Council of State, an option "studied" today by the lawyer.

Given the differences between these two legal decisions, the case could be referred to the conflict tribunal responsible for resolving conflicts of jurisdiction between administrative and judicial jurisdictions, according to Louis Ribière.

  • Justice
  • Nice
  • Alpes-Maritimes
  • Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
  • PACA
  • Fat
  • Castle
  • Town planning