Green Daily Fix

Energy performance is no longer just a label on a listing — since the loi Climat et Résilience, it is part of the legal definition of a decent home. A French landlord who cannot prove energy decency risks a tenant works request, a rent reduction ordered by a judge, or losing the right to rent at all. This is the practical document checklist: what proves your property is energy-decent, what goes in the lease file, and how to keep it dispute-proof.

Monday evening, 10pm. You own an electric-heated 60 m² flat in France, currently rated F on the 2022 DPE — rent frozen for three years, tenant moving out end of June. Your flat may have just moved up to class E without a single wall changing. The conversion coefficient for electricity in the French DPE calculation dropped from 2.3 to 1.9 on 1 January 2026. The change is regulatory, silent, and most landlords don't realise it applies to their existing DPE — no new diagnostic needed. This guide walks through what changed, the math you can run on your current DPE, how to download the corrected ADEME certificate, and the cases where nothing changes (gas, oil, hybrid heating). The calculation is short: three multiplications, ten minutes. The consequence on lease terms, rent ceilings and the 2028 letting ban can run into thousands of euros.

MaPrimeRénov' is best known as a homeowner subsidy. Most coverage describes the calculation, the income brackets and the application steps for someone renovating their own primary residence. Landlords renovating a rental property, however, face a materially different rule set under the same scheme: a 6-year commitment to rent the property at capped rents, a maximum of 3 dwellings per landlord, a 6-month deadline to rent after works completion, an obligation to inform the existing tenant in writing, and the strict reimbursement penalty if any of those conditions slip. None of this is optional, none of it is small print, and it interlocks tightly with the décence énergétique rental-ban calendar from the Loi Climat et Résilience that already excluded G-class properties from the rental market on 1 January 2025 and pulls F-class out on 1 January 2028. This guide walks foreign and resident landlord-investors through the 2026 framework specifically — Parcours Accompagné rules, income brackets for landlords, the Avenant Annexé au Bail and the financial stack with éco-PTZ and CEE — and through the operational cost of getting a single condition wrong.

Energy Savings Certificates (Certificats d'Économies d'Énergie, CEE), introduced by Article 14 of the Loi POPE (loi n°2005-781 du 13 juillet 2005) and now codified at Articles L221-1 et seq. of the Code de l'énergie, are France's primary private-sector mechanism for funding household energy renovation — operated through energy obligés (EDF, TotalEnergies, Engie and others) under successive multi-year obligation periods set by decree. The dispositif entered its sixth period (P6) on 1 January 2026 under décret n°2025-1048 du 30 octobre 2025, with a 27% rise in obligation volume to 1,050 TWh cumac/year through 2030 and a quarter of that volume earmarked for low-income households. For a homeowner the practical question is rarely the macroeconomics of the scheme — it is how to actually use it without getting scammed, in what order, and what it really stacks with. This guide walks through the legal basis, the works that qualify, the single procedural rule that disqualifies most ineligible files (signing the CEE BEFORE the work order), the 2026 Coup de pouce changes, how CEE combine with MaPrimeRénov', the bonus for revenus modestes and très modestes, and how to avoid the demarchage scams the DGCCRF has been hammering on through 2025.

The Diagnostic de Performance Énergétique (DPE), introduced by article L126-26 of the Code de la construction et de l'habitation, classifies every French dwelling on a unified A–G scale combining energy consumption (kWh/m²/year) and greenhouse-gas emissions (kgCO₂eq/m²/year) — and since the Loi Climat et Résilience (loi n°2021-1104 du 22 août 2021), the DPE class directly determines whether a property can legally be rented. Class G has been off the rental market since 1 January 2025; F follows on 1 January 2028; E on 1 January 2034. For sellers, a full energy audit (audit énergétique) has been mandatory for class F and G since 1 April 2023, extended to class E on 1 January 2025. The DPE must appear in every sale and rental advertisement, with administrative fines up to €15,000 for missing mentions. This guide explains what the DPE actually measures under the post-2021 3CL-DPE method, walks through the A–G thresholds, lays out the legal obligations and the rental-ban calendar, contrasts the audit énergétique with the DPE itself, and ends with a practical staged-renovation strategy to gain a class. It is written for individual owners and landlords — not for syndics, copropriété assemblies or commercial diagnostiqueurs.

April is landlord-tax month in France. Online filing opens on 9 April 2026, and private landlords must decide — often in a hurry — between the flat-rate micro-foncier regime and the far more flexible régime réel, collect a year's worth of invoices and receipts, and, for furnished rentals, pick between micro-BIC and LMNP régime réel. The 2026 season also brings real changes: social contributions on rental income jump to 18.6% (a CSG increase confirmed in the 2026 Social Security Finance Law), the doubled €21,400 déficit foncier cap for energy-performance works has been extended, and DPE rules keep tightening — class G has been off the rental market since January 2025 and class F follows in January 2028. This guide is practical, grounded in official rules, and aimed at individual bailleurs declaring unfurnished (revenus fonciers) or furnished (BIC/LMNP) rental income. It does not cover SCI à l'IS. Use the checklists, deadlines and régime-comparison sections below to file with confidence — and to avoid the mistakes that trigger the most reassessments.