Green Daily Fix

Is the DPE legally binding, and what can you do if yours is wrong? Since 1 July 2021 the DPE is opposable — binding like other property diagnostics — so a tenant can hold you liable for errors. But that street runs both ways: if your home is wrongly classed F or G and blocked from letting, you can commission a new DPE from another certified diagnostician, claim against the original one, or pull a free re-edited DPE.

Can you raise the rent on an F or G property in France? No. Since 24 August 2022, the rent of a "passoire thermique" (DPE class F or G) in mainland France is frozen: no IRL indexation, no increase at renewal, none between tenants — until renovation lifts it to class E or better, proven by a new DPE.

If you own a French rental rated F or G on its DPE, the clock is no longer ticking — for class G it has already struck. The loi Climat et Résilience phases energy-poor dwellings (passoires thermiques) out of the rental market on a fixed calendar, and a home that is no longer 'decent' cannot legally be rented. Here is exactly which classes are banned, on which dates, what it means for your existing tenancies, and the four moves a landlord can make right now.

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.