A parliamentary report makes 35 proposals for social housing

Give back the means to invest to social landlords and seize the fiscal weapon to fight against vacancy and short-term rentals: a parliamentary report formulated 35 recommendations a few days ago to enable the French to find better housing .

“It is possible to transform our housing system to better serve the French”, underline in a press release the deputies Mickaël Cosson (MoDem) and Stéphane Peu (PCF), authors of the report resulting from an information mission.

The largest household budget item, housing is experiencing an unprecedented crisis.

Among the three parts of proposals, the report suggests reforming taxation to make it “fairer and more efficient”.

To encourage the first purchase of a main residence, he calls for using the savings made by the government with the elimination of the Pinel system and the refocusing of the zero-rate loan (PTZ).

This would notably make it possible to reduce VAT on new properties to 5,5% instead of 20% and to temporarily exempt the buyer from property tax.

The deputies also plead for stopping the tax advantage enjoyed by furnished tourist accommodation such as Airbnb, a provision that the Senate is preparing to examine on Tuesday, and to establish "a tax regime more favorable to property income subject to the rental period, rent level and energy performance.

The fiscal tool must also make it possible to put housing back on the market, by generalizing the tax on vacant housing (TLV) or by allowing mayors to increase the housing tax on second homes (THRS).

“In general, we consider that taxation must hit harder on behavior that diverts housing from occupation as a main residence and, conversely, reward virtuous landlords who facilitate the long-term rental of renovated properties” , Mickaël Cosson declared on Wednesday to the members of the fact-finding mission.

Another part of the report, aid to social landlords to restart construction. Strong demand from the sector, the deputies call among other things to "return to the effects of the solidarity rent reduction" (RLS) imposed on landlords in 2018 to compensate for the drop in personalized housing aid (APL) paid to tenants, which amounts to returning them “around 1,3 billion euros per year”.

To streamline residential pathways in social housing, they recommend encouraging tenants "in a situation of under-occupancy" to accept smaller housing in exchange for financial compensation.

The report finally calls for helping builder mayors by paying them “flat-rate aid”.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.