Trying to determine whether an apartment in Paris is legal
Sep 23rd, 2018, 09:21 AM
#61
In 98% of France, there is absolutely no problem at all for renting out any apartment that you own. But in cities with a housing shortage, it is not just illegal but also immoral to charge 3 to 4 times the amount of rent that a standard lease would procure. And of course it is this "3 to 4 times" which owners find so attractive -- not to mention that just about all of them have been avoiding the payment of income tax on the revenue. Over the last several years, the biggest dilemma for just about all of the vacation renters was "how do we get enough cash out of the ATM to pay for the rental?" -- because of course all of these owners were demanding a cash payment to make sure there would be no trace of suspicious transactions on their bank accounts.
Sep 23rd, 2018, 12:30 PM
#64
Your naive questions are not much help, Pal. Why do burglaries still exist? Why are there still pickpockets? Wouldn't it be easy to arrest them all and lock them up? Wouldn't everybody love it for taxes to be raised so they could hire 5 times more police to do everything?
Sep 23rd, 2018, 03:07 PM
#66
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 78,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Well it just seems simple to check apartments thru VRBO or airbnb listed online to see if they have registration numbers same as folks here tell clients to do. It's hardly the same as catching crooks and pickpockets - and to me if city is concerned about losing housing for locals it should be a top priority but obviously is not and as such I don't blame any tourist who stays in one - if city don't care why should we?
Sep 23rd, 2018, 03:49 PM
#67
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 621
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Well it just seems simple to check apartments thru VRBO or airbnb listed online to see if they have registration numbers"
And then what?
As Sarastro was trying to point out above it is anything but simple. In the on line listings, complete names of owners are not given, owners' and apartments' addresses are not given, facts of ownership are not given . . . .much tracking down must take place before an apartment owner can be found and fined and thus forced to remove his apartment from the market. Many of these owners are business entities in which individuals are difficult to track. Many of these owners do not live in Paris or France or Europe. Just as in the US there is a question of "service" with official documents. To infer from the relative slowness of the process that " if city is concerned about losing housing for locals it should be a top priority but obviously is not" shows a lack of understanding of how governments must work.
And then there's the difficult question of how to assess for undeclared income and therefore, unpaid taxes.
Simple, my foot!!!!
And then what?
As Sarastro was trying to point out above it is anything but simple. In the on line listings, complete names of owners are not given, owners' and apartments' addresses are not given, facts of ownership are not given . . . .much tracking down must take place before an apartment owner can be found and fined and thus forced to remove his apartment from the market. Many of these owners are business entities in which individuals are difficult to track. Many of these owners do not live in Paris or France or Europe. Just as in the US there is a question of "service" with official documents. To infer from the relative slowness of the process that " if city is concerned about losing housing for locals it should be a top priority but obviously is not" shows a lack of understanding of how governments must work.
And then there's the difficult question of how to assess for undeclared income and therefore, unpaid taxes.
Simple, my foot!!!!
Last edited by Envierges; Sep 23rd, 2018 at 04:03 PM.
