Notice and eviction in Czechia, step by step

A lease of a home in Czechia ends in only a few ways: on its end date, when you and your landlord agree, or with a notice (výpověď) that meets the Civil Code's rules. Your landlord needs a reason the law names, and only a court can make you leave. This page goes through the reasons and notice periods, the deadline for asking a court to review a notice, your own notice and how a lawful eviction works. It isn't legal advice: if you've received a notice, get free legal help straight away, because the main deadline is short.

How can a Czech lease end?

• On its end date. A lease with an end date ends then. If you go on living in the flat for at least three months after that and your landlord doesn't ask you in writing to leave in that time, the lease is renewed for the same period, for two years at most, unless you agreed otherwise.¹
• By agreement. You and your landlord can agree to end it on any day.² Put the agreement in writing, with the day you hand over the keys and how the deposit comes back.
• By notice. Either of you can give notice, but on different terms: your landlord only for a reason the law names, you on a lease with no end date without one. Both are below.

When the landlord or the tenant dies, or the flat is sold, the lease doesn't simply end: when the landlord sells or dies explains what happens.

On what grounds can your landlord give notice?

Only on these, and the notice must name the reason it relies on.³

The Supreme Court has read the own-use reason so that the condition about a divorce applies only to the spouse: a landlord who wants to live in the flat themselves can use it on a lease with no end date.⁴ A lease with an end date can't be ended early for the landlord's or a relative's own use.³

If your landlord gave notice for their own or a relative's use and doesn't use the flat for that within a month of you moving out, they must let it to you again or pay for the harm you suffered. Time spent on refurbishing doesn't count if the work starts within two weeks of you leaving and goes on properly.⁵

Two duties are easy to miss. If you don't tell your landlord within two months that someone has moved in with you, the law presumes you've seriously broken your duty, and subletting without a consent the law requires is a gross breach.⁶ Subletting and flatmates explains both.

What must a landlord's notice say?

• It's in writing and reaches you. The notice period starts on the first day of the month after it reaches you: a notice that reaches you on 10 March starts a three-month period on 1 April, and the lease ends on 30 June.⁷ A posted letter is presumed to arrive on the third working day after posting.⁸
• It names the reason. For a notice without a notice period, it must also say what the especially serious breach is.³⁹
• It tells you your rights. A landlord's notice must tell you that you can object to it and ask a court to review whether it's justified, or it isn't valid.⁷ The Supreme Court has held that it must also tell you the deadline for going to court, and that without both, the notice is invalid in a way a court takes into account on its own.¹⁰

End of lease checks a notice you've received against these points and works out its dates.

How do you ask a court to review a notice?

You file a petition asking the court to review whether the notice is justified (návrh na přezkoumání oprávněnosti výpovědi). It must reach the court within two months of the day the notice reached you.¹¹ The Supreme Court treats this as a strict deadline: once it passes, you can no longer have the notice reviewed.¹⁰

• Write to your landlord too if you like, with your objections. Only the court petition keeps your right to a review.⁷
• While the case runs, a court can't issue a quick eviction order against you, as long as you asked for the review in time.¹²
• These cases go fast: papers are delivered to the flat, a hearing can be adjourned only once at each side's request, and the court decides within six months as a rule.¹³
• If the court finds the notice invalid or its reason not proven, the notice doesn't end your lease.

Court costs money, but a court can let you off the fees, and free legal help explains how to ask, along with who can help you write the petition.

When can a landlord end the lease with no notice period?

Only when you break your duties in an especially serious way. The Civil Code's examples are not paying the rent and the service charges for at least three months, damaging the flat or the building seriously or beyond repair, otherwise causing serious harm or trouble to the landlord or the people living in the building, and using the flat without right in another way or for another purpose than agreed. You then hand over the flat without undue delay, at the latest within a month of the lease ending.⁹

The notice is disregarded if it doesn't say what the breach is, or if your landlord didn't first ask you to put it right within a reasonable time.⁹ You have the same two months to ask a court to review it.¹¹

If you and your landlord disagree about how much rent you owe, you can place the amount, or the disputed part, in a notary's custody (notářská úschova) and tell your landlord. Your landlord then can't give you notice for not paying it.¹⁴

How can you end the lease yourself?

• No end date: give three months' notice in writing, with no reason needed. It runs from the first day of the month after it reaches your landlord.¹⁵⁷
• With an end date: you can give notice only if the circumstances you both clearly relied on when you signed have changed so much that you can't reasonably be asked to stay.¹⁶ Whether a change is big enough depends on the case, so the usual way out early is to agree it with your landlord.
• At once: you can give notice without a notice period if your landlord breaks their duties in an especially serious way and causes you considerable harm, if the flat becomes unusable for reasons that aren't yours, or if a defect you reported isn't put right in time and makes living there fundamentally harder or impossible.¹⁷

End of lease works out your last day and prints your notice in Czech, and the handover protocol records the flat's state when you give back the keys.

Why can't your landlord just change the locks?

Because the law gives a landlord a way to get a flat back, and it runs through a court. Your landlord must let you use the flat undisturbed for the whole lease. The law lets someone enforce their own right only in a reasonable way and only when the authorities would come too late, and a landlord can always go to court.¹⁸

• Keeping you out while your lease lasts, by changing the locks or otherwise, can be a crime with up to two years in prison, and so can entering your home without a right to.¹⁹
• Your belongings: the law lets a landlord hold back movable things in the flat for a debt, but that doesn't let them keep you out or throw your things away.¹⁸
• Your services: since 2026 only a housing co-operative or an owners' association can stop services, and only to its own member after three months' arrears. A landlord can't cut them to make you leave.²⁰

If it happens, call the police on 158 and get advice: problems with your landlord goes through what to do, including the fast court case for a disturbed home.

How does a lawful eviction work?

1. The lease ends, on its end date, by agreement or when a notice period runs out. If you stay on, your landlord is owed an amount equal to the rent until you actually hand over the flat.²¹
2. Your landlord goes to court. Since 1 January 2026, a court can issue an eviction order (rozkaz k vyklizení) without a hearing. You then have 15 days from receiving it either to leave and pay the costs, or to object (odpor) to the court that issued it. An objection in time cancels the order, and the court holds a hearing.¹² The order comes with a court request to set out your defence in writing within 30 days of receiving it. If you don't answer in time without a serious reason, the court treats you as accepting the claim and can decide against you without a hearing.²² The order isn't possible unless your landlord asked you in writing to leave at least 14 days before suing, and attached that request.¹²
3. A judgment to clear the flat gives you 15 days from when it becomes final, or longer if the court sets it. If the court ordered you to leave only once other housing is found for you, the time runs from then.²³
4. Enforcement follows only if you still don't leave. The court, or a court executor (soudní exekutor) applying the same rules, tells you at least 15 days ahead when it will happen, and tells the town too. On the day, your things are handed to you or to an adult in your household, or stored at your cost.²⁴

At every step the deadlines are short, so take each letter from your landlord or a court to free legal help the day it comes.

Sources

1. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2285. ↩

2. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §1981. ↩

3. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2288. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Supreme Court, 26 Cdo 1454/2016, 22 November 2016. ↩

5. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2289. ↩

6. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2272 and §2276. ↩

7. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2286. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §573. ↩

9. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2291. ↩ ↩² ↩³

10. Supreme Court, 26 Cdo 2029/2023, 15 April 2024. ↩ ↩²

11. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2290. ↩ ↩²

12. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §175a and §174, in force from 1 January 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³

13. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §195 and §196. ↩

14. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2253. ↩

15. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2231. ↩

16. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2287. ↩

17. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2208, §2227 and §2232. ↩

18. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §14, §2205 and §2234. ↩ ↩²

19. Criminal Code (Act 40/2009 Coll.), §178 and §208. ↩

20. Services Act (Act 67/2013 Coll.), §9a. ↩

21. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2295. ↩

22. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §175a(3), §114b(5) and §153a(3). ↩

23. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §160. ↩

24. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §340 and §341; Enforcement Code (Act 120/2001 Coll.), §52 and §59. ↩