Upon registration in the 2014 Alur law, the supervision of residential rents raised passions. It is even necessary to go back higher to find the origin of the debate which opened up, and which quickly opposed the representatives of the landlords and those of the tenants: it was a campaign promise by François Hollandeheld by her Minister of Housing Cécile Duflot. The religion war, which the oldest lived during the 1982 Quilliot law, was revived. The trials have multiplied against the system, sometimes successfully brought. The access to power of Emmanuel Macron created a hope for opponents, who saw in this young president from finance a liberal believing only in market self -regulation … Hope quickly disappointed.
Far from making the majority of rents repeal by his majority, Emmanuel Macron has skillfully consolidated it in the Élan law: a period of experimentation of five years, that a second law will still extend three years -just in 2026-, a term evaluation, the possibility of supervising a restricted territory and not an agglomeration, and the hand given to local elected officials in high rental tension areas. Here is a first assessment has just fallen, signed by two deputies specializing in public housing policies, Annaïg Le Meur, elected macronist of Finistère and president of the National Housing Council, and Iñaki Echaniz, elected socialist of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. The report finds that the supervision has crashed excessive rents compared to the market where it is in force and Recommend its extension. He also suggests that the rent supplements justified by exceptional characteristics of the accommodation are better defined and controlled. The Minister of Resignment Housing, Valérie Létard, also mandated two economists to assess the efficiency of the supervision and this second report will complete the evaluation sequence. It is difficult to see how their exercise would condemn the device … at most it will be nuanced.
Towards a bill
The two deputies, for their part, have announced a bill putting their recommendations to music. We are thus going towards an evolution of the system, far from the end that the representatives of the owners and the administrators of goods dreamed. In reality, it is outside the field of this report and this legislative intention that we must go and seek the ferments of a just analysis of the management of rents. This excursion leads to two observations, the need for decentralization and political coherence.
First, is it normal that the supervision is not placed without reservation in the hands of mayors and their municipal councils? To date, despite the progress in this direction of the Élan law, carried by Julien Denormandie, the delegation is only partial: the agglomerations of more than 50,000 inhabitants in which market tensions are noted have to ask the State the supervision and unless the communities require it, it is up to the State to sanction non -compliance. Patrice Vergriete, to whom the time of action as Minister of Housing was not given, himself mayor of Dunkirk and president of the Dunkerquoise metropolis, wanted to purely and simply that mayors could Establish the supervision without state authorizationeven if it means that remedies exist against local elected officials who would not demonstrate the utility or mismanage the criteria which allow to claim supervision.
Create the tax status of the lessor
Why limit to major cities? In fact, mayors can better than anyone appreciate market situations … and dialogue in the municipality or community of municipalities with stakeholders, local chambers of managers and real estate agents or donor associations or tenants, will be more precise, more documented and less ideological than at the national level. No doubt it must also be that the prefectural orders fixing the median rents are based on wider datataking for example in consideration the Clameur Observatory, which has proven itself.
Then, how can the legislator seriously want to extend the constraints of donors without providing them with a full-fledged tax and civil status? Obviously, after the departure of Matignon by François Bayrou and the loss of power of the Minister of Housing, confined to current affairs like all his colleagues from the government, the project to depreciate rental housing, but also the project to update the list of recoverable charges or even the establishment of a dilapidated grid for the calculation of deductions on the deposit of guarantee are weakened, if not postponed. We will be careful not to imagine them buried, but sorrowful minds do not exclude him. It is important that the legislator, on the basis of parliamentary initiatives or bills from the government, is concerned with equity. Investors cannot be required for moderation of rents, bringing energy standards, maintenance of housing to maintain them at a worthy level of service for tenants, compliance with all the rules that govern their activity only if the conditions are met with honorable return.
Attrition of the rental park
This equity, in itself founded, is all the more essential and urgent since the rental park is in full attrition. Investors desert the offices of the promoters and in the existing, their number was reduced by a good third party. The increase in interest rates, a consequence of our public deficit and the degradation of our sovereign note, will not arrange anything. The postponement to the social park extends the queues: the president of the Social Union for Housing, Emmanuelle Cosse, holding Congress this week in Paris, revealed an aggravation of the situation, with 2.8 million HLM applicants, and a half -yearly increase of 100,000 files. These figures are explosive. Without immediate action, that is to say from the finance bill for 2026 being written, it is necessary to establish a lasting tax status, for the old and nine, recognizing the economic role of the lessor and the wear of its property, with a linear accounting amortization over 20 years. The Daubresse-Cosson report usefully inspires the government and it is enough to take up the recommendations.
One thing is certain: the time has not come to make political speeches, even less to display political wishes likely to exasperate current or potential investors, as long as their status has not been created. The rental park would lead to a historical weakening, which would even further penalize households and, by prejudicing to the link between work and employment or studies, the French economy and its competitiveness, already asthenic.
