37% abusive rents in Paris, 43% in Seine-Saint-Denis
1uh December, the rent framework entered into force in Montreuil, Bagnolet, Bondy, etc. A total of nine municipalities of the territorial public establishment Is together, to the north-east of Paris, are joining this experiment, which has already been launched in Paris, Lille, Lyon and Plaine Commune (Seine-Saint-Denis) as part of the ELAN law of 2018. The objective is to limit excessive rents in these agglomerations under pressure. Agency fees are also regulated by the ALUR law of 2014. According to our survey, made from ads on the real estate site SeLoger.com, as well as third parties of the ads published concern goods whose authorized ceilings have been exceeded.
In detail, 37% of advertisements in Paris and more than 40% in Plaine Commune and Est Ensemble show excessive rents, and agencies continue to charge excessive fees in more than 20% of cases.
An amount linked to the property and its location
We collected 8,753 advertisements published between November 18 and 30 for properties located in Paris and in the towns of Plaine Commune and Est Ensemble. From a real estate advertisement (type of property, surface area, number of rooms and location), it is possible to calculate the maximum rent and the agency fees authorized by law, then to compare it with the amounts of rents, charges and agency fees offered (see the “methodology” box).
An overrun, known as a “rent supplement”, may be authorized only for accommodation with exceptional characteristics (garden, swimming pool, etc.), but it must appear in the rental lease.
This method could not be applied in Lyon or Lille, because the rent ceilings sometimes changed within the same street, which made computer processing too complex. The rules governing agency fees are stricter: no overrun is allowed.
An unprecedented survey in Seine-Saint-Denis
According to our survey, in Paris, at least 37% of rental accommodation is excessively rents. These results corroborate the 35% overrun observed in Paris by the Rent Control Observatory, the first report of which was unveiled at the end of November by the Abbé Pierre Foundation. On the other hand, the calculation had never been carried out in Seine-Saint-Denis, entered into the system in July for Plaine Commune and in December for Est Ensemble. Or the proportion of rents exceeding the ceilings raised to 43% for the towns of Plaine Commune; at Est Ensemble, 43.5% of homeowners will have lowered their prices by 1uh December to comply with the law. While some advertisements may justify being exceeded due to exceptional characteristics, this is not the case for more than a third of them.
Moreover, the device is not final: it was put in place as part of a five-year experiment, which will end in November 2023 but could be continued thanks to the 4D bill (for “differentiation, decentralization, deconcentration and simplification ”- previously decomplexification) adopted at first reading in the Senate and examined on Monday 6 December in the National Assembly.
75% of studios are outlawed
Small surfaces are very striking, as already shown by the study of the Observatory of the Abbé Pierre Foundation or investigation of the Consumption, Housing and Living Environment Consumers Association (CLCV). We found that more than three quarters of the advertisements we found for apartments of less than twenty square meters do not comply with the legislation.
But in absolute value, the overruns, when they occur, are much more important in the center and the west of Paris, rich districts where the law already provided for higher reference rents.
Up to six times the amount of authorized fees
Another type of overrun has not been the subject of any major study to our knowledge: that of the fees paid by the tenant to real estate professionals. The ALUR law sets the limit per square meter at 12 euros in a very tense area, 10 euros in a tense area and 8 euros on the rest of the territory, for the organization of visits, the constitution of the file and the drafting of the lease, successful are added 3 euros per square meter throughout the territory for the establishment of the inventory of entry places. No other service can be billed to the tenant.
Or, according to our calculations, of the 8,753 announcements that we have studied, 22.9% of the fees charged by the competent professionals these ceilings. The excesses are sometimes very important, as in this duplex of 41 square meters on the Ile de la Cité (Paris, 1uh and 4e arrondissements) whose fees amount to 4,320 euros, or more than 105 euros per square meter, more than six times the amount authorized in Paris. Many announcements provide for ambiguity by asking the tenant for one month’s rent excluding charges, which often exceeds the limit.
Little used remedies
If a tenant finds that the increased reference rent has been exceeded on the lease signed since the application of the law or considers that the additional rent is too high, he can refer the matter to the departmental conciliation commission (CDC). A fine of 5,000 euros for individuals and 15,000 euros for legal persons may be imposed by the prefect. If the conciliation is unsuccessful, a judge may be seized.
Given the scale of the phenomenon, in Paris, few cases have been sent to the committee: to date, the CDC has been seized on 185 times and has ruled 150 times in favor of the tenant, ten cases being pending. instructional course. However, ten fines were imposed.
You can find the maximum rent corresponding to your accommodation by using the tool set up by the prefect of the Ile-de-France region, the city of Lille and the Lyon metropolis or thebrowser extension set up by a group of developers, very useful for finding accommodation in areas where rents are regulated. For fees, a simulator is available here.