Holidays lettings in France - Tips and tricks by Valérie Augros

3. To publish the rental advertisement together with the declaration (authorisation) number of the lessor obtained from the municipality; 4. To ensure that the accommodation is not rented for more than 120 days a year if this constitutes the main residence of the lessor. In addition, Internet platforms are also subject to control by municipalities that they comply with the above obligations. Upon a simple request from the mayor, they have to communicate information as to the number of days of rentals for each tourist accommodation they advertise on line. The purpose of this is to verify the real use made of properties in the concerned city – in other words, to find out whether the accommodations are still available to inhabitants as residential homes or offered to tourist lettings. Another purpose is to ensure each municipality receives payment of the tourist tax, where applicable, given that the tourism code introduced specific obligations for platforms in this respect. Failure for Internet platforms to comply with such obligations can also give rise to significant fines: - Up to euros 12,500 for failure to inform the lessor correctly - Up to euros 50,000 for failure to respond to the requests made by the mayor, - But also in some cases to damages (see hereinafter). For example, the city of Paris recently decided to issue proceedings against an Internet platform that failed to mentions in 1,010 offers for holiday lettings advertised on its website, the respective declaration numbers of the lessors. The court ruled that failure to advertise the declaration number constituted a breach and held the platform to pay a fine of euros 8,000 per incomplete advertisement, making a total fine of euros 8,080,000 to the benefit of the City of Paris!7 French courts are nowadays applying the recent above-mentioned provisions destined to control holiday lettings, with a particular severity against both lessors of holiday lettings and Internet platforms that are advertising offers. They further decided to apply other older dispositions, to limit the inconvenience originating from expanding holiday lettings. II. The reference to older existing legislations to remedy inconvenience resulting from holiday lettings 7 TJ Paris, 1 July 2021, n°19/54288.

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