Rents for accommodation classified as “thermal sieves” have been frozen since Wednesday August 24. A first step. From January 2023, certain dwellings will be prohibited from being rented if their owners do not carry out the necessary work to increase their energy performance.
These new regulations, pactions within the framework of the Climate and Resilience Law, adopted on August 22, 2021, are necessary to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, which today represent 20% France’s greenhouse gas emissions. Tenants and owners are wondering about the consequences of the entry into force of these new measures. Franceinfo has called on experts to answer your questions.
@Aveyron45: What will happen to tenants living in F or G rated accommodation?
If you live in an “energy sieve”, classified F or G, your rent is frozen as long as the owner has not carried out work to bring your home out of these categories. “The rents of housing, whose energy performance diagnosis (DPE) is classified F or G may not be subject to any increase”announces the site service-public.fr. “The rent blocking measure will concern the entire park gradually from the end of the current contracts”specifies Louis Le Merle, legal director of the National Agency for information on housing (Anile).
From January 1, 2023, it will be prohibited to rent out G-class accommodation that consumes more than 450 kilowatt hours per year per square meter. But tenants who have a current contract in a dwelling in this category will not be immediately affected by the measure. “The new energy decency criteria apply to new contracts from 1 January 2023”explains Louis Le Merle.
This ban will therefore gradually affect 90,000 homes in France, including 70,000 in the private sector. A measure that will extend to all G-rated accommodation on January 1, 2025. will then follow housing classified F from 1 January 2028. Finally, the ban will also apply to E-classified accommodation, from 2034. These latter represent 22% of the current rental stock.
@Phil: Sisland owner does not want to do work, does he have the right to evict me?
No, your landlord cannot evict you. “This is not a prohibition in the strict sense of the term, the tenant will be able to obtain work from the lessor, if he has signed a contract from January 1, 2023”explains Cecile Canin charge of legal studies at Anil. “It is a constitutional right to live in decent housing. There is an obligation for the lessor to bring the accommodation that he rented”, she continues.
@Tenant: Will the rental ban affect the number of units available for rental and the cost of rent?
“If things go the way they are right now, there will be fewer homes on the marketsays Michel Mouillart, an economist specializing in residential real estate. There will be a few hundred thousand fewer homes, without it being clear what the occupants of these homes, low-income households, will become. According to the expert, most landlords of housing classified as “energy sieves” will not have the means to carry out the work necessary to bring their property up to energy performance standards. The specialist points to the imbalance between the cost of renovation work to be planned on a national scale and the annual amount of current public aid. “It’s unmanageable. It would take 20 billion euros, while the budget for Ma Prime Renov’ is only 2 billion”he assesses.
Michel Mouillart also believes that“there will be an increase in rents” old “thermal strainers”, “if by chance the landlords can carry out the work”. The risk is therefore, according to him, to see empty accommodation, because it is poorly insulated and therefore prohibited for renting, and at the same time, low-income households in difficulty to find accommodation, because the rent for renovated accommodation is likely to increase. Especially since, if the number of housing units in the rental stock decreases, “mechanically, we should have an increase in the average level of rents”concludes the economist.
@Granny: How do you know the classification of your accommodation?
You must refer to the energy performance diagnosis (DPE). Since 2007, landlords have been required to provide it to their tenants. “The energy performance diagnosis (DPE) must be given to the tenant when the lease is concluded”, clearly states the site service-public.fr. This document allows you to estimate your home’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission rate.
@Enboule: Who should carry out this diagnosis?
The DPE must be carried out by a certified professional and its cost is the responsibility of the owner, recalls service-public.fr. The government has set up a directory to help owners find a certified professional diagnostician near them.
@Anne: Pcould we trust the ECD displayed on a lease?
Questions about the reliability of energy performance diagnostics were raised by UFC-Que Choisir in April in a comparative survey. “The DPE makes it possible to know the range in which a dwelling is located, but from one diagnostician to another, the same dwelling can be classified a letter above or below”, notes Vincent Legrand, CEO of Dorémi. The diagnostician engages his legal responsibility, which aims to deter diagnostics of convenience. “Sanctions are provided for in particular if the DPE does not comply with the regulations”recalls service-public.fr.
@Lake: Will my landlord be required to do a diagnosis?
The period of validity of a DPE is fixed at ten years. But within the framework of the Climate and Resilience Law, the diagnostic criteria will change from January 1, 2023. As a result, the DPEs “carried out before December 31, 2017 must be renewed before December 31, 2022″ and “those that were made before June 30, 2021 must be done before December 31, 2024”announces the site service-public.fr.
“The owner is obliged to carry out a diagnosis when signing a new contract, but not during a current contract”, specifies however Cécile Can, of the National Agency for information on housing. In contrast, “if the diagnosis is out of date and the landlord wants to increase the rent, he must be able to prove the energy performance of his accommodation” and therefore have a new DPE established, she continues. Finally, if your owner wishes to sell, from April 1, 2023, he will be required to carry out an energy audit.
@Location: Do gites also have to have an energy rating to be rented?
No, these new measures only concern accommodation rented as a principal residence. Seasonal rentals are not affected by the rent freeze, recalls the service-public.fr site.
@JP BEN : Will social landlords be affected by these measures?
“Social landlords are affected by the new energy decency criteria, but not by the rent freeze”, responds the National Agency for Information on Housing. If you are faced with a particular case, Anil is there to answer your questions, about your rights as tenants, and about the tools available to you as a landlord.