A house or an apartment is not just a roof, it is a space that we live in and this place must meet specific criteria. From 2025, certain accommodation can be excluded from public aid.
Housing aid is a service paid each month to millions of French people, whether they are tenants or owners of their home. However, you should know that if housing does not meet certain criteria, the family allowance fund can completely stop the payment of this aid. It is therefore the very quality of the habitat that comes into play.
Why could 5 million French people lose their CAF aid? A strict regulation has recently been established for energy -consuming housing, also called “thermal colanders”, these freezing apartments or houses in winter, stifling in summer, which cost a fortune to heat. These homes go against the energy transition. This aims to ensure that the poorly classified accommodation from an energy point of view, are renovated by their owners in order to overcome the cost generated by the considerable increase in invoices. Indeed, on January 1, 2024 and according to the SDES (data service and statistical studies), 5.8 million dwellings would be classified F or G according to their DPE (energy performance diagnosis). Result: one in ten French people currently lives in an uncomfortable, sometimes unhealthy habitat, knowing that if accommodation is classified G, it is considered not decent. This is why CAF has decided to quit by suspending the housing assistance payments for classified G -January 2025 housing.
Who is concerned? The owners of poorly classified housing located in dense urban areas are the first concerned with this regulation. However, this measure aims to reduce the number of thermal colanders on French territory, not only the comfort and well-being of the occupants, but also so that the owners optimize the quality of their accommodation while contributing to the ecological transition. It is a question of making housing healthier, more pleasant to live in, more respectful of the living environment.
What consequences? If you are a tenant of classified accommodation G, know that you will not undergo the consequences of the suspension of the payment of housing aid. Indeed, if your landlord directly perceives this aid, the CAF will automatically interrupt the payments for 18 months. If, on the other hand, this aid is paid directly to you, you will be allowed to pay only the balance of the rent due (aid to the housing deducted) in your owner for 18 months. Relief for tenants, who avoid paying for accommodation that does not respond to comfort standards.
Once the renovation of the accommodation is made and it displays a better DPE, the CAF donates all the aid suspended to the owner of the premises. But if nothing has been done and/or if the accommodation is still classified G, the suspended aid is considered to be lost.
