The effectiveness of rent control in Paris, implemented in 2019, will not last long. In 2023, 77% of rental listings were compliant according to the association Consumption, Housing and Living Environment (CLCV). Only one year later, the curve is already declining. In 2024, the CLCV which examined 1,000 rental adverts for the capital, identified 71% of compliant adverts in the capital in 2024 – a score that remains higher than the overall average of Paris + Seine-Saint-Denis (93) where rentals are also classified.
The association sees a possible “effect Olympic Games» during which there was in particular an influx of rental contracts previously unknown to the general public: leases civil code« .The health crisis has allowed seasonal rentals to be transformed into traditional rentals, which has allowed the rental supply to increase and therefore to lower prices. The Olympic Games had the opposite effect: the supply of long-term rentals dried up and rents increased», deciphers David Rodrigues, CLCV lawyer and author of the study. Sometimes beyond the limit provided by law.
This is the case for 23% of rental ads in Paris. The excess rent amounts to an average of 170.62 euros per month. That is almost 2050 euros per year. In three years it has increased by about 43% and by almost 15% in one year. “One in three ads has an overage rate of over 21%.», underlines the CLCV which specifies that «All ads considered in the survey were taken into account ensuring that no additional fees were applied”. In the case of this study, non-compliant advertisements are therefore illegal. However, all rent overruns they are not necessarily.
Are there any intentional omissions in the ad?
The law, in fact, authorizes the owner to ask the tenant for a surplus that is called a supplement. It is enough that it is written in black and white in the rental contract. Which, according to the CLCV, is not always the case. “We noticed that many ads omitted the rent supplement but also the number of rooms in the accommodation or its surface area.David Rodrigues denounces. This phenomenon, until now very rare and due to the owner’s carelessness, is becoming more and more widespread and deceiving the tenant who does not know whether the rent control is respected or not.»
On the district side, the study questions the principle according to which the richest neighborhoods are those whererent control which would be criticized especially by wealthy owners, is the least respected. The proof: the 7th, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Paris, has one of the highest compliance rates: 75%. In contrast, the 19th, more modest, records only 64% of legal ads.
Another lesson: the smaller the dwellings, the more illegal the advertisements tend to be. In Paris, the compliance rate is 64% for studios, which are among the most popular with tenants, and 88% for 4-room apartments and above. This observation also applies in Seine-Saint-Denis (with the exception of large dwellings), but compliance rates are 13% to 20% lower than in Paris.