Don't Cry For Me, Maisons-Laffitte
Oops!... I Scraped It Again
The Versailles Court of Appeals has ruled. Again. Bigger. And the app is still running — which tells you everything about how this business actually works.
I pulled up Jinka’s homepage this morning.
There’s a new wall of text at the top.
Court-ordered. Black font, size 12, exactly as specified in the April 14 judgment from the Versailles Court of Appeals. *Publication judiciaire* — the French legal system’s preferred method of public humiliation, now in its second consecutive performance on jinka.fr. The first wall went up after December 2025. This one is fresh.
Below the wall of legal text, Jinka’s homepage continues completely unbothered.
”1 app, tous les sites immobiliers.” (One app, all real estate websites.)
”Des milliers d’utilisateurs satisfaits.” (Thousands of satisfied users.)
”Soyez le premier alerté.” (Be the first to know.)
The audacity is, frankly, magnificent.
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What the Court Actually Said
On April 14, 2026, the Versailles Court of Appeals ruled in the case of LBC France — leboncoin.fr — versus Babel France, the company behind Jinka.
This is not a new case. In May 2024, the Nanterre Tribunal found against Jinka and awarded LeBonCoin €50,000. Babel France appealed. The Versailles court reviewed the lower judgment and concluded, politely but firmly, that €50,000 was insufficient.
The revised terms:
Damages: €200,000 — four times the original
Legal fees: €53,000 — owed directly to LeBonCoin
€500 per listing — penalty for any new extraction of LeBonCoin data, beginning three months from the ruling
A second *publication judiciaire — on their homepage, on the Jinka app, and in every alert email sent to users
The alert email provision is new. The December ruling shamed them on their website. This one follows their users into their inboxes.
I checked the site today. The publication is already posted.
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What to Use Instead
The practical section, for those apartment hunting right now:
Bienici — my prefered aggregator still operating legally. They negotiated actual licensing agreements with the major platforms. Revolutionary concept, eh?
Belles Demeures — related to the above and very high-end apartments. The best of what Paris offers…for a price. If you’re looking for something over 5,000€/mth, this is the only place you should look.
SeLoger / Logic-Immo — the two biggest portals. The interface will not bring you joy. The listings are comprehensive but low quality.
LeBonCoin — good luck for a long-term apartement. Private listings that appear nowhere else and the owner is getting 500 messages per day. Do it if you’re bored, but don’t count on it.
PAP (known as Particulier à Particulier) — i did this and it worked great ten years ago. No fees, etc. But this is mostly roommate situations. If you’re on a small budget and are good at living with others, this is your solution.
Le Figaro Immobilier — better for the higher end of the market; even then, it’s mostly sales and not rentals.
The dream of one app, all the listings, real-time alerts is over. It was always legally precarious. Four separate rulings have now confirmed it. Open the tabs.
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Why the App Is Still Running
Here’s what I didn’t tell you in February — because I didn’t know it yet.
Jinka is not what it looks like. Most people assume it’s a consumer tool for apartment hunters. That’s the lobby. The actual business is something else entirely — and once you see it, the survival of this company through €313,000 in court judgments stops being mysterious.
They found a way to make the courts’ problem their revenue model. It’s been working. The April ruling is the first mechanism that might actually stop it.
The full analysis — the B2B product they’ve been quietly running, the math that made six years of illegal scraping rational, the specific number in this ruling that changes the calculation permanently, and the sequence that plays out from July 2026 — you should read about here with my paid subscribers.