Secondary residences: nearly 2.600 new municipalities will be able to increase their housing tax

"This decree is an appropriate response to so-called 'tense' territories, where the presence of second homes is a brake on the mobilization of year-round housing," Thierry Repentin, mayor of Chambéry and president of the city, told AFP. AMF Housing Commission.

Expected in the spring but postponed due to undesirable effects on the finances of certain municipalities, this decree published on August 26 intends to "put vacant housing or second homes back on the permanent housing market".

Concretely, it "extends the scope of application of the annual tax on vacant housing (TLV, editor's note)", a zoning which makes it possible to increase "the housing tax on furnished housing not allocated to the main residence" , in other words second homes, "to municipalities which, without belonging to a continuous urbanization zone of more than 50.000 inhabitants, are faced with a marked imbalance between supply and demand for housing".

With this decree, a total of 3.700 municipalities are now part of this new zoning, mainly located on the coastlines, in Corsica and in mountain areas.

They have until October 1 to deliberate so that this increase can apply from January 1, 2024.

Previously, only municipalities belonging to a continuous urbanization zone of more than “50.000 inhabitants”, where a “marked imbalance between housing supply and demand leads to “serious difficulties in accessing housing”, were eligible.

But the text also mechanically deprives municipalities which had introduced a housing tax on vacant housing (THLV) of revenue.

In fact, municipalities cannot combine THLV and TLV, the TLV being collected by the State, the THLV by the municipalities.

This loss is estimated at more than 24 million euros.

"This decree should be improved to allow mayors to use independently of each other the housing tax on second homes and that on vacant housing, because we have territories where there are both a lot vacant housing and many second homes", reacted Thierry Repentin, indicating however that the government had undertaken "to integrate this loss in the future finance law 2024".