It will remain as a dark episode in the relationship between politics and housing. In recent hours, fate has made the project of instituting depreciation for housing acquired to be rented bare is distressing. All that for that… Years of reflection, of construction of a fair status, which recognizes the investor as an entrepreneur providing a service, multiple reports, accompanied by simulations, the unrestrained commitment of a Minister of Housing -Valérie Létard- and a Prime Minister of the Republic -François Bayrou-, and on the obstacle, while the budget for 2026 is being prepared, debates unworthy of the issue and ruin scheduled from device.
We will not repeat here the bad film, in fact not finished, from recent days, and we will only remember the essentials. First a Prime Minister who removes from the finance bill for 2026 the provision introduced by his predecessor, then a Minister of Cities and Housing who publicly promises a government amendment to this text, to reintroduce depreciation, without any precision. At the same time, deputies co-signed a strategic amendment taking up the spirit and inspiration of the Daubresse-Cosson report and the intention of the previous government. This amendment is rejected by the Finance Committee, which has the mission of preparing the debate in session which will undoubtedly take place at the end of this week. Finally Minister Jeanbrun reveals and submits a minimalist amendment, with a linear depreciation rate for new rental properties of 2% per year over 40 years – by convention the 20% corresponding to the value of the land is not depreciable. Note also the absence of amortization bonus in the case of intermediate or social rents. For the former, it is envisaged that the work will be depreciable, for tax purposes only. If it is a question of creating an investment shock, triggering VAT and transfer tax revenues for communities, we are far from the mark.
A threat or an opportunity for our fragile democracy
Clearly, two copies will clash, that of parliament, which resembles something, and that of the executive, which gives the sad impression of having been written to accredit that the government is not ignoring the crisis of the rental market and collective production. The only problem is that the government has the initiative and therefore its version remains, whether we like it or not, a basis for negotiation and that whoever shoots first has already won in a negotiation. We learn this in business schools… The probability that the rate of depreciation in new buildings will end up at 2.5% is strong, with the destiny of the old one being only the depreciation of the works, and a two-year extension – welcome – of the doubling of the deductibility envelope on the overall income of the land deficit resulting from energy renovation works, hitherto unknown and under-used by landlords.
If the parliamentarians win their case, if the groups from all sides know how to align themselves, and make their voice heard without haggling to the government, so that it agrees to give soul to its text, then everything will be saved and the policy will emerge enhanced in the eyes of the housing sector and the French, investors or candidate tenants. In the opposite case, and this is the spectacle given by the past week, it is public speech which will lose all credibility. We will then have to open our eyes: we will have to recognize that we live in a country whose political elites are incapable of hearing the complaints of public opinion. The worst will be feared.
What is at stake around an unfortunate amendment goes well beyond real estate: it is a threat or an opportunity for our fragile democracy. The result is deserved esteem or disenchantment, and indifference to what is decided in places of power. And something like disgust.
