“As of January 1, the city of Paris will have the possibility of controlling the supervision of rents”, recalled Tuesday the deputy of Anne Hidalgo in charge of Housing, Ian Brossat.
While nearly a third of Parisian rents exceeded the legal ceiling in 2021, the town hall is taking up the subject and intends to put pressure on the owners. “On January 1, the city of Paris will have the possibility of controlling the rent control. A dozen agents will be mobilized initially“To ensure compliance with this obligation, said this Tuesday on LCI, Ian Brossat, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Housing.
Until now, this competence fell to the Prefecture of Paris. But the operation remains the same, the agents mobilized will not have the task of controlling the owners a priori but only after a report by a tenant. At the beginning of January, a digital tool will be offered to them on the town hall’s website so that they can check that their rent is indeed in accordance with the law. In case of abuse, tenants can then file a file and report it. The agents will then have the task of sending a formal notice to the owners and then sanctioning them if they have still not changed their rents. The fine is 5,000 euros for a natural person and 15,000 euros for a legal person.
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The rent control system sets a reference rent for housing, varying according to the location and characteristics of the property. It was introduced in Paris in 2015 and then interrupted between 2017 and 2019. According to the latest report from the Paris Urban Agglomeration Rent Observatory (Olap), in 2021, 30% of new unfurnished leases exceeded the maximum rent allowed by the rent control, compared to 26% in 2020. The average amount exceeded was 161 euros, comparable to previous years.
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“So far, very few fines have been issued. Only about ten sanctions for three years, which is extremely low given the scale of the fraud“claims the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Housing. However, an overrun does not necessarily mean that the lessors are outlaws, specifies the Olap, since some can be justified by exceptional characteristics such as a direct view of a monument or luxurious equipment for example.
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