Taken to court by the State: about one in four published orders to leave a home in Luxembourg targets people in its reception housing

Who brings the orders to leave

Luxembourg publishes pseudonymised housing judgments from its three peace courts on data.public.lu. We read every file in the 2025 and 2026 collections of the Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette and Diekirch courts: 1,385 files, published up to September 2026.

We kept the files in which a judge orders someone out of a home, or sets a date after which they can be removed by force. Commercial leases, other lettings that combine a home with a café, a shop or a professional use, premises with no home, corrections of earlier judgments and rulings on extra time after a judgment (sursis) are left out. That leaves 342 residential orders to leave in the 2025 files and 217 in the 2026 files.

Because most private landlords and companies are pseudonymised, we cannot count how many cases any one of them brings. Some public and non-profit landlords are named, such as the Fonds du Logement, or shown by type, such as a communal administration. So is the State of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, whose cases here concern housing of the national reception office, the ONA.

Over both years, the State brought 136 of the 559 published orders to leave a home, about one in four. Sorting borderline files is a judgement, and another reader may place a few files differently. Under the widest and the narrowest readings we found, the share stayed between about 23% and 26% (see Method and limits). The share is a share of the published files, not of all cases. An order to leave is not an eviction: it authorises removal only if the person has not left by the deadline. In the 168 files from the State's cases we found no statement that a forced removal took place. Files from other landlords' cases do record forced removals, for example Diekirch Rép. 1636/25 and 291/26 and Luxembourg Rép. 3866/25.

Diekirch, 2025: four in ten

The share was not the same everywhere. In Diekirch's 2025 files, the State brought 50 of the 124 orders to leave, 40%. In Diekirch's 2026 files, published up to August, it brought 10 of 59, 17%. The Luxembourg court went from 36 of 183 to 23 of 131. Esch-sur-Alzette shows 11 of 35 in its 2025 files and 6 of 27 in its 2026 files, but its 2025 collection has no file dated between 15 July and 17 December 2025, so neither Esch figure covers a full year.

We found no explanation in the files. The 2026 collections and the Esch-sur-Alzette 2025 collection are not complete, the dataset pages of the publisher, the Administration judiciaire, do not say how files are selected for publication, and a small court can change a lot with a few cases. We therefore report the change with its dates and do not explain it.

Who is being told to leave

In the State cases, the person told to leave is not a tenant. In 95 of the 136 files, the judgment says the person had been granted international protection (refugee status or subsidiary protection). The other 41, all from Diekirch (32 in 2025 and 9 in 2026), describe a home made available through the ONA under a pledge to leave but do not say in terms that the person had protection. In at least one of them the court's reasoning treats the occupant as a person with protection. Because the ONA also houses applicants still waiting for a decision and people whose application was refused, we do not assume these 41 had protection.

The ONA's own guide says what happens after protection: "Un BPI a un délai de 12 mois pour quitter la structure de l'Office national de l'accueil (ONA) et trouver son propre logement" (a person granted protection has 12 months to leave the ONA structure and find their own home). While they stay, they pay a contribution set by their income and family composition, and sign a one-sided undertaking (engagement unilatéral) to that effect (ONA guide, version of 19 May 2022). The pledges quoted in the judgments also set a date to leave.

The judgments show the same rule in practice: in many files, the first pledge set a move-out date about a year after protection. For example, in one Luxembourg case decided on 22 January 2026, protection was granted on 30 June 2022. A week later the person signed a pledge to leave by 1 July 2023. The ONA sent a formal notice on 17 February 2025, the State filed its case on 18 March 2025, and the judge ordered departure in January 2026, three and a half years after protection. The occupant did not dispute having to leave. The occupant told the court they could not find a new home straight away.

How long they stayed

In 94 of the 136 files, the judgment states the date protection was granted. In every one of the 94, the judgment came more than two years after protection: 2.1 to 7.5 years.

In the 2026 files the middle case is about three years (29 files). In the 2025 files it is about four years (65 files), and 22 of those 65 give a grant date in 2018 to 2020.

The Government has said the same thing in general terms. At the end of 2024, people granted international protection were 31% of everyone housed by the ONA, and "la majorité de ceux-ci continue à être hébergée dans le réseau de l'ONA plus de 12 mois après l'obtention de leur statut" (most of them are still housed by the ONA more than 12 months after getting their status) (Government 2024 review, 3 February 2025). At the end of 2025 they were 29.4% of residents in a network of 8,276 beds. The main network for asylum applicants had a net occupancy rate of 98.1% (Ministry activity report 2025, June 2026).

Why they stay: the State's own words

In 29 of the 136 files, the State's own case says the ONA kept the person housed as an exception and "pour des raisons tenant à la difficulté de trouver des logements au Luxembourg" (for reasons to do with the difficulty of finding homes in Luxembourg). In some files the State argues that the occupant had not proven an active search. But in none of the 168 files from these cases did we find the State saying the occupant turned down a home it had offered.

The private rental market gives the context for the State's own words. chathome.lu data shows what agency listings asked on 2 October 2026. The median asking rent was EUR 1,900 a month, EUR 1,550 for studios and EUR 2,250 for two-bedroom homes, in each of four readings that day, at 11:06, 12:42, 13:53 and 15:13 UTC, each made by a different independent checker. The number of listings fell once between those readings: there were 1,440 active residential rental listings in Luxembourg, 1,173 of them with a price, at 11:06 and 12:42, and 1,360 and 1,104 at 13:53 and 15:13. The counts that follow are from the 11:06 reading: 80 of the 1,173 asked EUR 1,000 or less, and of 222 listings with a price and three or more bedrooms, 23 asked EUR 2,000 or less. These are asking rents on agency listings, not the rents any of these families could get (method).

What the courts decide

Our 136 files were chosen because a judge ordered departure, so they cannot show how often the State wins. For that, we looked at every published file from a case the State brought about ONA housing: 168 in the same collections.

• In 136, the judge ordered departure. Once the pledged date has passed, judges usually treat the person as having no right or title to stay (occupant sans droit ni titre).
• In 1, the judge declared the State's request inadmissible because it had used the wrong procedure (a requête instead of a citation), and the State paid the costs.
• In 5, the departure request was not decided because the occupants had already left: the State dropped it in 4, and in 1 the court declared it without object.
• In 21, the State asked only for unpaid occupation fees, and 1 is an interim ruling.
• In 3, the occupants later asked for extra time after an order to leave (see below), and in 1 the State asked the court to correct an earlier judgment.

So when the State asks a judge to order departure and the case is decided on its merits, the published files show it winning. The judges' real choice is the deadline. In 86 of the 136 files the judgment quotes a State request for one month, and in 3 more, all in Diekirch, the judgment says the ONA opposed any deadline longer than one month. In one further Diekirch file the ONA opposed a deadline of two months. In 4 files it agreed to three months at the hearing: 2 in Diekirch and 2 in Luxembourg, one of them after first asking for one month in writing. The judges gave:

• one month in 18 cases and 40 days in 7;
• two months in 60 cases;
• three months in 36, four months in 9 and six months in 6.

Deadlines differed by court. In the Luxembourg court, 44 of the 59 orders gave two months or less. In Esch-sur-Alzette, 10 of the 17 orders gave one month. In Diekirch in 2025, three months or more was the norm: 32 of the 50 orders. In Diekirch's 2026 files it was 1 of 10.

A long stay is cited as a reason against more time

In 31 files, all from the Luxembourg court, the judge uses a standard passage that cites the time already spent in ONA housing as a reason not to give more time. In this passage, one judgment of February 2026 says the person had "pu bénéficier du logement mis à sa disposition pendant encore plus de 2 ans après l'obtention du statut de protection internationale" (been able to stay in the home for more than two more years after getting international protection). Another 2026 judgment says "près de quatre ans", and two 2025 judgments say "près de sept ans". The same passage cites the "pénurie de logements pour les demandeurs de protection internationale", the shortage of housing for applicants for international protection. In 28 of these 31 files, the deadline was two months or less. Nine Diekirch judgments of 2025 also point to the length of the overstay when refusing the six months asked for; two of them gave two months and seven gave three months. More often, Diekirch judgments use a different line. In 22 orders (16 in 2025 and 6 in 2026) they say the State has "déjà fait preuve d'une grande clémence", it has already been very lenient; one more 2026 order says "très grande clémence".

This is a stated reason, not a measured effect. Across the 94 files with a protection date, people who had stayed longer did not get shorter deadlines: two months or less went to 23 of the 33 who had had protection for two to three years, and to 9 of the 14 who had had it for five years or more. Some judgments turned the State's own delay the other way. One in Esch-sur-Alzette in 2026 said the ONA's long tolerance of overstays had given people hope they could stay, and gave six months; several Diekirch judgments in 2025 cited the ONA's late action when giving more time.

In 7 Luxembourg-court orders (6 from 2025 and 1 from 2026), a place on a waiting list did not count as a search: the judge wrote that the occupants had shown no active search for a new home "autre que l'inscription sur les listes d'attente" (other than registering on waiting lists), for example at the Fonds du Logement. Six of these 7 orders gave two months and one gave three.

We do not give a count of how often proof of a search or a personal hardship changed the deadline. An earlier draft did, but a second reading of the files could not reproduce it: the result depends on whether a hardship the occupant pleads is counted, or only one the judge relies on. The files show both outcomes. In 2026, Luxembourg judges gave six months to a very young occupant, citing family situation and career prospects, four months to an occupant in poor health with a low income, and three months to an occupant with a serious physical disability. Two other 2026 judgments noted a precarious situation and gave two months.

No extra time after the judgment

For ONA residents, the deadline in the judgment may be the only time they get. People ordered to leave an ordinary rented home can ask the judge for a sursis: up to three months more, renewable twice, if the judge finds they deserve it, they prove wide search efforts and the request comes within the law's time limits (articles 16 to 18 of the amended law of 21 September 2006 on residential leases). But article 1(3) of that law excludes reception structures for applicants and people granted protection, except for chapter V on disputes. The sursis is in chapter IV. On our own reading of the text, which is not a legal opinion, the wording leaves some room for doubt: article 16 lets an occupant without right or title ask for a sursis as well as a tenant, and article 1(2) limits the law to homes let to natural persons "sous réserve des dispositions des articles 16 à 18" (subject to articles 16 to 18). None of the three rulings below discusses that wording; they hold that only chapter V applies to ONA structures.

At least three published rulings from two courts applied this and declared ONA residents' sursis requests inadmissible. On 24 January 2025, the Esch-sur-Alzette court declared inadmissible the request of two occupants who had been given two months to leave in November 2024 and asked for three months more. The Luxembourg court did the same on 14 February 2025 (Rép. 609/25), for a couple with five young children who had been given 40 days, and on 29 August 2025 (Rép. 2789/25), for a family given two months in June 2025 who told the court they were still actively searching.

In the 2025 and 2026 files of the three courts we found no ruling that gave an ONA resident a sursis. That is weaker evidence than it sounds. Article 17 of the law says a decision on a sursis request is recorded as a simple note in the plumitif, the clerk's record of the hearing, and is open to no recourse ("aucun recours"), which means a grant might never appear among the published judgments. Grants to other occupants do appear in the collections, for example Diekirch Rép. 1283/25, where the other party is a communal administration and the occupants got a first sursis until 30 November 2025.

The strongest case for the State

The ONA runs temporary reception housing, not social housing. Its main network for asylum applicants had a net occupancy rate of 98.1% at the end of 2025, and new applicants keep arriving: 1,926 new applicants entered the network in 2025. At the end of 2025, applicants for protection were 35.1% of the people housed, people granted protection 29.4% and people under temporary protection, the status for people who fled the war in Ukraine, 24.9% (Ministry activity report 2025, section 3.5). So people with protection are about three in ten residents while the main network for applicants is almost full. The report gives no occupancy rate for the ONA network as a whole. The pledge is signed at the start, with a clear date, and people stay for years past it. Seen this way, going to court is the only legal tool the State has, and judges agree the claim is well founded.

We also cannot show that the State takes people to court more than other landlords do. It is one repeat claimant that may take every overstay to court, while private landlords may settle. We also do not know how files are selected for publication, and that selection may explain part of the gap between Diekirch's 2025 and 2026 shares.

What the files show is that both things are true. The State is entitled to its beds, and the orders are lawful. A court order moves a person out of a bed; it does not show where that person goes next. In 29 files the State itself writes that it kept people housed because homes are hard to find, and in 31 Luxembourg files the court's standard passage cites the long stay as a reason not to give more time. The files record the exit being ordered, not whether the housing problem the State describes was solved.

What would change this conclusion

This reading would be wrong if the State could show that most people it takes to court had turned down real housing offers, or that most leave for stable homes after the order. The files show neither. In five files the departure request fell away because the occupants had already left, and some of the fee-only claims also concern people who had left. So some people do find somewhere to go, but the files do not say where. An official count of where people go after leaving ONA housing would settle it. We did not find one.

What this means for you

• If you or someone you help lives in ONA housing past the pledge date: in the published State orders, judges usually treated the pledge date as the end of the right to stay (one Luxembourg order, Rép. 798/25, counted from the deadline in the ONA's formal notice instead), and we found no published ruling that gave an ONA resident extra time after the judgment. Ask for enough time at the first hearing and bring written proof: every housing application and every search you made, not only waiting-list registrations, and any hardship (children, health, income). In seven Luxembourg orders, judges did not accept a place on a waiting list alone as an active search; deadlines differed between courts, and 85 of the 136 orders gave two months or less. Check the state rent subsidy and search rentals by budget.
• If you follow housing or migration policy: ask for the numbers the files cannot give. How many people with protection live in ONA housing today, how long they have been there, whether they were offered a home before being taken to court, where the ones who leave go, and why the published share in Diekirch fell from 2025 to 2026.

This article is information, not legal advice. Anyone facing proceedings to leave their home should consult a lawyer or a legal advice service about their own case.

The question for readers: should the State be able to take people with protection to court before it can point them to a home they can afford?

Method and limits

The files are pseudonymised; we never publish an address or anything that could identify a person. Published files are not all cases and may not be representative. The claimant, the occupant's status, the protection date and the deadline were read from the text of each judgment and checked by hand. Deadlines are the ones in the operative part of the judgment; in four State orders the reasoning names a different period. Counts of what judges or the State wrote are counts of exact wording. The 12-month rule comes from the ONA guide of 2022; the reception law of 11 June 2026 governs asylum applicants, and a search of its text found no provision on the exit period for people already granted protection; that is what our search found, not a legal opinion. The first version of the Luxembourg 2026 collection we downloaded, on 25 September 2026, had two files that the version the publisher uploaded on 27 September 2026 does not contain, one of them a State case; we removed both and use nothing from them. The Ministry and the ONA were not contacted before publication; any reply they send will be added here.