Doppio

Is the ability to be able to rent a Paris apartment for under one year on the chopping block?

Most of us know that the hotel lobby has been pushing for this for a few years. However, this is the first time I've received a letter from an agency. Seems like the possibility of this actually happening is becoming closer to reality.

Anyone with info, please post!

I received the following email from Lodgis.com, a reliable, well-known French agency, a few minutes ago. We've rented through Lodgis five times over the past few years.

Here's the letter I just received via email:

<i>Hello,

Furnished rental is threatened in Paris, as well as in other French towns of 200 000 inhabitants or more. Renting for less than one year will soon become nearly impossible. Paris City Hall has decided to forbid it. Wether you want to rent an apartment for a short term stay to visit Paris, attend a fair, come for an 8 months internship or even stay in Paris for 11 months for business, City Hall wants you to say in a hotel instead of an apartment. It will even become impossible to rent an apartment when you are in a difficult situation, and need to find a home to get medical care, or after a break-up or a decease. According to City Hall, renting a flat in those conditions is now becoming illegal.

Parisian owners are in a difficult situation : it is becoming impossible to rent your second home when you are not in Paris. The law says that you can either:

Choose to rent for short term, pay a considerable amount of money (80 000 for a 20 m2 studio), and pray for City Hall to accept your request. If you succeed, you will be able to rent for short term but you won't be allowed to occupy your apartment for personal use.
Choose to occupy the apartment personally but be unable to rent it when you are out of town.

Our agency is part of an organization that defends short term rentals. Our mean is to defend tenants and owners, and allow people to visit Paris the way they want, whether it is for business or personal purpose, and whether it is for one week or 10 months. We have some appointments with Paris City Hall and the government. The only way to make them listen to our requests is for us to get as many supporters as possible. We need to show them that we represent the opinion of a large number. For that WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT. </i>

<B>From Bets @ RS</B>

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Anyone have more info??

FrenchMystiqueTours

If you feel like reading 112 responses then you can look at the debate that's been occurring on another travel forum:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...de_France.html

Doppio

From there - I would be very wary of booking a short term rental say, 6 months from now, in the current context, unless I can get formal proof from the agency that the desired flat's owner does have both the registration and the business operating permit.

Considering the roller coaster love affair that the Greens (who are the ones moving heavily on all real estate matters) have with the Socialists right now at the Government level, all bets are really off as to where this topic will go in the next few months. That plus the fact that this is also a Paris-city-hall level thing, and that municipal elections are now about 16 months away. The current mayor shall not run for office, but the lead Socialist candidate should be his First Deputy, who happens to be in charge of urbanism and architecture, and IMO should keep the current stand of "giving back Paris to Parisians" (less cars, more social housing).

(Again, don't read any political message here: this is purely descriptive)

Robert2533

From what I read, City Hall wants to get rid of those who are not paying taxes on the income earned on their "rental" properties by forcing them to register those properties as a licensed business.

If you were to deal directly with the owner of the apartment, and not an agency, then it would be difficult for the government to know the property was being rented on a short term basis.

SAB

Robert, it's always about money. My city collects visitor taxes (might be something similar in Paris) from hotels that they don't get it from short term apartment rentals. Although the ban on short term rentals to visitors--in our case less than a month-- is stated as a concern for housing availability, in reality it's about not collecting those visitor taxes.

kerouac

Paris and many French cities have a visitor tax (<i>taxe de séjour</i, ranging (in Paris) from 1.50€ per day for 4 and 5 star hotels to 0.42€ for a 1 star hotel.

The issue is indeed about housing in Paris because the waiting list for social housing is 9 years at the moment. Paris is trying to stop the "Venice syndrome" where most of that city has been turned into temporary lodging and the population has declined from 174,000 in 1951 to less than 60,000 now. Some areas in Paris like Ile Saint Louis and much of the 6th and 7th arrondissements have already been emptied of most of their permanent inhabitants to the delight of visitors.

But Parisians are not delighted at all.