Parliament definitively adopts a new cap on rent increases

A safeguard for tenants. By a final vote of the Assembly, Parliament definitively approved, Wednesday, June 28, the extension of a cap on the rise in rents, despite criticism from the left, which advocated a freeze to the end. “Inflation slowed in May, to 5.1% over one year, [mais] we still need to protect and accompany”insisted in the hemicycle the Minister Delegate for SMEs, Olivia Grégoire, supporting the bill of Renaissance MP Thomas Cazenave.

After two successful passages in the Assembly but as many setbacks in the Senate, it was the lower house which played its role of ultimate arbiter by definitively adopting the text by 137 votes against 34. It renewed a “shield” which caps the increase in the reference rent index (IRL) at 3.5% for tenants in private and social housing. Established in the summer of 2022, it was to end on June 30, 2023, which led the presidential camp to legislate urgently.

A similar device for SMEs

In a context of sharply rising prices and a sluggish housing market, the bill extends the system until the first quarter of 2024. With the hope of“a return” inflation “below 3.5% in the second quarter”, according to Thomas Cazenave. The ceiling will be set at +2.5% overseas, and will be adjustable up to 1.5% in Corsica.

The rapporteur had warned against a surge in rents of the order of “6%” from July in the event of non-renewal of the measure. A similar system will cap the increase in the commercial rent index (ILC), for SMEs, until the first quarter of 2024.