Intermediation of furnished tourist accommodation rentals

The obligations’ scope of application is limited to communes that have put in place a change of use authorisation procedure for accommodation and a registration procedure for furnished tourist accommodation (the registration procedure is defined in paragraph II of Article L324-1-1 of the Tourism Code).

With regard to lessors, the purpose of the article is to:

- prohibit lessors from renting out their primary residence as furnished tourist accommodation for more than 120 days per year (this rule already existed as a result of the change of use procedure provided for in the Construction and Housing Code);

- introduce an obligation for lessors to send the commune, upon request, the total number of nights for which the accommodation was rented out as furnished tourist accommodation during the year N-1;

- increase the civil fines that can be imposed on lessors who do not meet their obligations to between €5 000 and €10 000, depending on the offence.

With regard to intermediaries, the article reproduces the obligations under Article 51 of Law No 2016-1321 of 7 October 2016 for a Digital Republic, i.e. 1. the obligation to publish the registration number of the accommodation being rented out as furnished tourist accommodation 2. the obligation to send the requesting commune the number of days for which the accommodation was rented out as furnished tourist accommodation during the year N-1 by an intermediary, and 3. the obligation to take down rental adverts for a primary residence after 120 days’ rental.

The obligations have been revised in order to restrict the obligations under paragraphs II and III solely to intermediaries which are capable of meeting them (i.e. to those who are aware of the information in question and, for platforms, those who are ‘aware of or can monitor the data stored therein’).

The draft law sets out the civil fines that may be imposed on intermediaries of between €12 500 and €50 000, depending on the offence (the decree implementing the Digital Republic Law, which was supposed to put in place penalties, was not enacted, meaning that intermediaries are not currently penalised for failing to meet their obligations).