From this Wednesday, January 1, 2025, hundreds of thousands of homes will no longer be able to be rented, find out why

Starting this Wednesday, January 1, 2025, the most energy-intensive housing will be classified as indecent and can no longer be rented, which is causing anxiety among owners, who are worried about being forced to carry out renovation work, despite the great uncertainty surrounding the application of this measure.

Adopted in 2021, the Climate and Resilience Act plans to gradually consider housing with poor energy performance as indecent.

First, housing classified G+ in the energy performance diagnosis (DPE) was deemed indecent in 2023. It is now the turn of classes G from January 1, before F housing in 2028, then E in 2034.

The law requires landlords to provide tenants with decent housing. If this is not the case, the latter can demand work from the owner, refer the matter to a judge if necessary to force the lessor to give in and obtain a reduction in rent or suspension of payment while the work is being carried out.

Decency is a prerequisite for signing a lease, so, “theoretically, there should no longer be any advertisements for G-rated rental properties”, nor any new contracts, believes David Rodrigues, legal director of the CLCV association (Consumption, Housing and Living Environment).

“Shaky” law

Real estate professionals, however, do not all agree on how to interpret the text of the law, which is considered “completely shaky” by David Rodrigues: does the indecency of housing apply on January 1st to all housing, or to the tacit renewal of the lease or only to new signings of rental contracts ?

The Ministry of Housing claims that “the ban on renting out G-rated housing” 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 firm Gide Loyrette Nouel, indecency applies from January 1st for all G housing, but the law “does not strictly speaking prohibit a landlord from renting”. It is “a little more subtle”.

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If he rents, “the owner is exposed to the tenant requesting that the accommodation be brought into compliance with decency criteria”, continues Me Chesneau.

There is no legal termination of a lease in the event of indecency, and if a landlord tries to terminate a tenant who has filed an appeal, this may be considered abusive.

David Rodrigues senses that “few tenants will” this appeal. He would rather like “a cap on rents” energy sieves “in areas where there is rent control”, so as not to penalize either the tenant or “the landlord who could not carry out the work”, but whose accommodation is still habitable.

He is also concerned about tenants who would not have access to the DPE of their accommodation, the communication of which is not mandatory for a rental property.

565,000 dwellings concerned

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 timetable for energy sieves, considered tight and untenable by certain professionals and politicians, concerns nearly 565,000 G-rated homes as of January 1, 2024, according to government data, which specifies that a reform of the DPE, introduced in July, has reduced the number of small areas classified F or G.

“Gigantic project”

“The energy renovation project is gigantic”, it was “impossible to do all this work in four years, especially in small co-ownerships”, warns Loïc Cantin, president of the National Federation of Real Estate (Fnaim).

Since 2022, more than 108,000 G housing units have been renovated, according to official figures.

“I don't think the goal was to renovate all G housing units” before 2025, according to Carine Sebi, full professor at Grenoble École de Management, but rather “to send a strong first signal to landlords to initiate a dynamic of energy renovation, and to protect tenants who are not able to improve their housing”.

Loïc Cantin nevertheless fears “an acceleration of the housing crisis” if hundreds of thousands of homes disappear from the rental market.