PARIS: Paris unveiled new regulations Thursday tightening restrictions on holiday apartment rentals, hoping to ease a housing shortage with measures including fines of up to 100,000 euros ($105,000) for breaches.
France’s parliament approved a bill this month allowing cities to clamp down on short-term furnished rentals to combat a lack of affordable housing.
The French capital, one of the world’s top tourist destinations, is among many cities worldwide where officials and activists complain rentals are encouraging “Airbnb entrepreneurs” and speculators to snap up real estate, leading to housing shortages for residents.
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Under new rules approved by the Paris city council, which take effect January 1, the maximum number of days a primary residence can be rented will be slashed from 120 per year to 90.
Owners will be required to declare their properties on a national online registry and prove their properties are primary residences, with fraudsters facing a 20,000-euro fine.
The fine for illegally changing a property’s designated use will double, from 50,000 euros to 100,000 euros.
Jacques Baudrier, Paris deputy mayor for housing, hailed the regulations as a “historic win”, after a more than decade-long push for tighter rules.
“We now have much more efficient legal weapons,” he said.
Platforms that fail to block users who violate the maximum number of rental days and concierge services that act as “accomplices” to fraudulent renters will also face fines.
Airbnb criticized the measures in a statement, calling them a “diversion” from the real problems driving housing shortages.
“In other cities that have put in place drastic measures of this type, such as New York, there has been no positive impact on the long-term rental market,” it said.
Paris officials estimate 25,000 apartments in the city are currently up for short-term rental illegally, generating one billion euros in annual revenue.
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