From Wednesday, the most energy-intensive accommodations are classified as indecent and can no longer be rented, which upsets owners, worried about having renovation work imposed on them, despite great vagueness around the application of this measure.
Adopted in 2021, the Climate and Resilience Law plans to gradually consider housing with poor energy performance as indecent.
First of all, it was housing classified G+ in the energy performance diagnosis (DPE) which was judged indecent in 2023. It is now the turn of classes G from January 1, before housing F in 2028, then E in 2034.
The law obliges landlords to provide the tenant with decent housing. If this is not the case, the latter can request work from the owner, contact a judge if necessary to make the lessor comply and obtain a reduction in rent or the suspension of its payment while awaiting the work.
Decency is a prerequisite for signing a lease, therefore, “theoretically, there should no longer be announcements of accommodation for rent classified G”, nor new contracts, believes David Rodrigues, legal manager of the CLCV association (Consumption, housing and living environment).
– “Wonky” law –
However, real estate professionals do not all agree on how to interpret the text of the law, deemed “completely shaky” by David Rodrigues: does indecency in housing apply from January 1 to all accommodation, or the tacit renewal of the lease or only the new signatures of rental contracts?
The Ministry of Housing states that “the ban on the rental of G-rated accommodation” applies “to new rental contracts, and at the time of renewal or tacit renewal” of current leases.
On the other hand, for Me Etienne Chesneau, associate lawyer at the Gide Loyrette Nouel firm, indecency applies from January 1 for all G housing, but the law “does not strictly speaking prohibit an owner from renting”. It's “a little more subtle”.
If he rents, “the owner is exposed to the tenant requesting that the accommodation be brought into compliance with the criteria of decency”, continues Me Chesneau.
No termination of lease is provided for by law in the event of indecency, and if a landlord tries to give notice to a tenant who has filed an appeal, this may be considered abusive.
David Rodrigues anticipates that “few tenants will” take this action. He rather wants “a capping of rents” for energy sieves “in areas where there is rent control”, so as not to penalize either the tenant, nor “the lessor who could not carry out the work”, but whose accommodation is still habitable.
He is also concerned about tenants who do not have access to the DPE of their accommodation, communication of which is not obligatory for a rental property.
– 565,000 homes affected –
A bill aimed at clarifying the text and adapting the timetable to the constraints of co-ownerships was presented at the end of October to the National Assembly, but its examination has been blocked since the censorship of the Barnier government.
This energy strain schedule, considered tight and untenable by certain professionals and politicians, concerns nearly 565,000 housing units classified G as of January 1, 2024, according to state data, which specifies that a reform of the DPE, introduced in July, has reduces the number of small areas classified F or G.
“The energy renovation project is gigantic”, it was “impossible to do all this work in four years, especially in small condominiums”, warns Loïc Cantin, president of the National Real Estate Federation (Fnaim).
Since 2022, more than 108,000 G housing units have been renovated, again according to official figures.
“I do not think that the objective set was to renovate all G housing” before 2025, according to Carine Sebi, full professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management, but rather “to send a first strong signal to landlords to initiate a dynamic of energy renovation, and to protect tenants who are not able to improve their homes.
Loïc Cantin nevertheless fears “an acceleration of the housing crisis” if hundreds of thousands of homes disappear from the rental market.
