Hotel operator liability under the new Book 7 of the Belgian Civil Code

Following our introductory post on the new Book 7 “Special contracts” of the Civil Code, we turn in this publication to a provision of direct relevance to the hospitality and leisure sector: the rules on hotel operator liability, now set out in Articles 7.4.47 to 7.4.54 of the Civil Code.

These articles replace the former Articles 1952 to 1954quater of the old Civil Code, traditionally known as the rules on “hotel deposit” (dépôt hôtelier/hotelbewaargeving). As we explain below, the substance of the regime is, by design, essentially unchanged, but the renumbering and restructuring are worth knowing, as is the legislative thinking behind the choice to leave the regime untouched.

It is worth recalling, as the parliamentary history of the original 1970 bill implementing the Paris Convention shows, that the former regime itself already represented a deliberate alignment of Belgian law with an international minimum standard. The 1970 legislative history explains that the pre-existing Article 1952 made hotel operators liable only for objects “brought by the traveller who lodges with them”, whereas the Convention’s annex defined a broader notion of objects “brought to the hotel”, including items placed under the hotel operator’s supervision for a period preceding or following the stay, which required Article 1952 to be adapted.

A regime Belgium cannot unilaterally change

The former Articles 1952 to 1954quater of the old Civil Code contained a specific regime governing the liability of a hotel operator for damage to, destruction of, or theft of objects brought into the hotel by a guest. These provisions transpose into Belgian law the Paris Convention of 17 December 1962 on the liability of hotel-keepers concerning the property of their guests, approved by the Belgian Act of 28 February 1970.

Because Belgium must continue to honour that international obligation, the drafters of Book 7 stated explicitly that the content of the articles had to be preserved in its entirety. The proposal is accordingly limited to a light reformulation of the former articles to reflect the abolition of deposit as a separate nominate contract, and to a restructuring of the provisions for didactic reasons.

This is therefore a rare example within Book 7 of a chapter that is substantively frozen rather than modernised: the legislature’s room for manoeuvre was constrained by Belgium’s international treaty commitments.

From “hotel deposit” to a chapter on hotel deposit within the service contracts title

The preparatory works note that the rules continue to be referred to by their traditional name, “hotel deposit”, even though this no longer corresponds to a standalone contract. Since Book 7 abolishes deposit as a separately named contract and absorbs it into the new unified category of service contracts, “hotel deposit” now survives only as a dedicated chapter dealing with one specific aspect of liability within a much broader contract concluded between the hotel operator and the guest.

One practical consequence flagged in the preparatory works concerns evidence. Under the old regime, the hotel deposit was treated as a deposit “of necessity”, with the consequence that the regulated system of proof did not apply to the hotel operator’s liability. Since deposit disappears as a separate contract, Article 7.4.47, §2 now says so directly: Article 8.9 of the Civil Code, which contains the regulated proof regime, does not apply to the hotel operator’s liability under Article 7.4.47, §1.

Renumbering during the legislative process

The hotel deposit provisions were renumbered more than once as the bill moved through Parliament before reaching their final place in the Civil Code. The table below maps the final numbering onto the former Civil Code articles it replaces, based on the correspondence given in the preparatory works.

New Book 7 article	Former Civil Code article it replaces
Article 7.4.47 – Liability of the hotel operator	Article 1952, first and second paragraphs
Article 7.4.48 – Scope of liability	Article 1952, third paragraph, and Article 1953, first paragraph
Article 7.4.49 – Exclusion of liability	Article 1954
Article 7.4.50 – Deposit of securities, cash and valuables	Article 1953, second paragraph
Article 7.4.51 – Packaging	Article 1953, third paragraph
Article 7.4.52 – Notification period	Article 1954bis
Article 7.4.53 – Exclusions (vehicles and live animals)	Article 1954quater
Article 7.4.54 – Status (mandatory character)	Article 1954ter

What the regime covers

Article 7.4.47, §1 makes the hotel operator liable for the deterioration, destruction, or theft of objects that a guest who takes a room and stays at the hotel brings into the hotel. The article then defines, in three categories, what counts as “brought into the hotel“: objects present at the hotel while the guest has the room available; objects placed under the supervision of the hotel operator or an auxiliary outside the hotel during the stay; and objects placed under such supervision, inside or outside the hotel, for a reasonable period before or after the stay.

Article 7.4.48 caps that liability, per claim, at 100 times the daily room price, where by Royal Decree the elements can be determined for establishing that price. By derogation, liability becomes unlimited in three situations: where the objects were handed over to the hotel operator or its auxiliaries for safekeeping; where the hotel operator wrongfully refused to accept objects it was obliged to accept under Article 7.4.50 (i.e. securities, money and valuables); or where the damage, destruction, or theft results from a failure attributable to the hotel operator or its auxiliaries.

Article 7.4.49 excludes liability where the damage is due to the guest or a person accompanying, serving, or visiting the guest, to force majeure, to armed robbery, or to the nature or defect of the item itself.

Article 7.4.50 obliges the hotel operator to accept securities, money, and valuables for safekeeping, subject to a right to refuse where they are dangerous or, having regard to the size of the hotel and the circumstances, of excessive commercial value or cumbersome. Article 7.4.51 allows the hotel operator to require that items entrusted to it be kept in a closed or sealed package.

Article 7.4.52 requires the guest to notify any damage immediately upon becoming aware of it, failing which the right to hold the hotel operator liable lapses, unless the damage was caused by a failure attributable to the hotel operator or its auxiliaries. Article 7.4.53 excludes vehicles, their contents left on site, and live animals from this regime. Article 7.4.54, finally, provides that any clause purporting to release the hotel operator from liability before the damaging event occurs is deemed unwritten, confirming the mandatory character of the regime.

No change in substance, confirmed by the preparatory works

The preparatory works confirm that, unlike many other parts of Book 7, the hotel deposit chapter is not an occasion for substantive reform. Operators, guests, and their insurers can expect the existing case law and doctrine built up around the 1952 to 1954quater regime, including the case law of the Court of Cassation on matters such as the scope of “objects brought into the hotel” and the operator’s own-fault liability, to remain directly relevant once Book 7 enters into force.

What this means in practice

For hotel operators, property managers, and their insurers, the practical message is continuity rather than change. The liability cap tied to the daily room price, the unlimited liability for items accepted for safekeeping or wrongfully refused, the mandatory duty to accept valuables, and the prohibition on advance waivers of liability all carry over unchanged in substance from the old Civil Code to Articles 7.4.47 to 7.4.54.

In the next blog in this series, we turn to another topic of relevance to the real estate and construction sector addressed in Book 7. Stay tuned.

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This blog post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Written by

• Lieven Peeters

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