It's the sea serpent that has been tacking for years. Ready to bite last fall, the censors set in its teeth. Not for long: there he comes with his forked tongue… The snake in question is the ruin of the owner, the dispossession of the awful person who has invested in the stone and refuses to open his door wide. That is, more or less, the dream of the entire left.
For years, in fact, housing policies have been looking for an infallible method that would force owners of second homes and other vacant accommodation to put them on the rental market. The deputy in charge of Housing at Paris town hall found the… classic solution: suffocate them further with taxes.
Already under Hollande, then under Macron…
To do this, a first decree of May 10, 2013 (government of Jean-Marc Ayrault) expanded by the decree of August 25, 2023 (government of Élisabeth Borne), established a list of municipalities where to apply the tax on vacant housing (TLV) and housing tax on vacant housing (THLV). Measures supposed to resolve the crisis in cities lacking housing.
The law has therefore been passed, and if you own accommodation that has been unoccupied for at least a year in one of the municipalities listed, you may have to pay a tax calculated on the rental value of said accommodation. Since 2023, this rate has been set at 17% for the first year in which housing becomes taxable, 34% for subsequent years.
Remember that in December 2012, Cécile Duflot, minister under the Ayrault I and II governments, called “ everyone to mobilize » to denounce vacant housing. As the former deputy (LR) for Alpes-Maritimes Lionnel Luca wrote at the time: “ Requisitions, denunciations… C. Duflot is nostalgic for the Soviet era. When will housing be shared by several families? Good bye, Lenin! » The idea, as we suspect, is still in the works…
Always stronger!
These administrative hassles, unfortunately, have in no way resolved the housing crisis, which is ever more acute, particularly in large cities and especially in Paris. And since no one wants to seriously question the underlying reasons for this crisis, we always come back to the same remedy: bleeding the owners.
According to INSEE, there were, in 2020 in Paris, 262,000 vacant housing units. Those that Rémy Féraud, Anne Hidalgo’s foal, said he wanted “ return them » to Parisians. The supply of rental housing is shrinking and, according to a study by the SeLoger group cited by The Parisian last November, “ the supply of properties for rent in Paris has collapsed by half (-54.8%) since October 2021 (-32% nationally) ».
So Jacques Baudrier (PCF), the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Housing, has an idea that is good, as the late Coluche said: multiply the TLV and the THLV by three. “ At the end of November, senators voted that the tax on vacant housing fell solely to the municipalities and with no tax limit. Same for the one on second homes. But the censorship has reshuffled the cards », recalls The Parisian. Mr. Baudrier therefore returns to the charge: we must “ convince owners that it will cost them more not to live in their home rather than renting “, he said. Concretely, writes the daily, “ on average, for an apartment of 50 m2you have to pay between 1,500 euros and 2,000 euros in taxes. Tomorrow, with the new regime, it will be 5,000 or 6,000 euros. »
For what results?
It is, obviously, in the most upscale districts that we find the most empty housing. Thus, in VIIIeof which Jeanne d’Hauteserre, the mayor (LR), confides: “ There are entire buildings where the shutters are constantly closed. Many owners come from the Middle East and therefore have deep pockets. The increase in taxes will not scare them. We also have a good number of companies who have bought here because it is prestigious. »
The housing situation in Paris is only the price of an aberrant policy carried out for two decades by the bobo left which reigns over the capital; the one who wanted to transform Paris into a paradise for wealthy tourists, substituting luxury shops for food shops, pushing the middle classes ever further behind the ring road when it abandoned its sidewalks to migrant camps and drug addicts. Multiplying taxes by 3, by 5 or by 10 will not change anything.
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