You live in London, New York or Singapore. You own a one-bedroom flat in the 18th arrondissement of Paris that you let for 1,400 euros a month. The lease comes up for renewal this autumn, and your managing agent sends you a short email with a long attachment: the energy report rates the flat G, the lowest class on the scale, and the agent adds that the flat can no longer be re-let as it stands, that the rent cannot be increased by a single euro, and that the tenant has started asking, in writing, when the renovation works will begin. Three problems arrive in the same envelope: a letting ban, a frozen rent and a tenant who knows his rights.

This is the new ordinary situation of thousands of foreign owners of French rental property. Since 1 January 2025, a dwelling rated G on the diagnostic de performance énergétique (energy performance assessment, universally called the DPE) is legally indecent, which means it may not be offered for letting. Since August 2022, dwellings rated F or G have had their rents frozen: no annual indexation, no increase for improvement works, no revaluation at renewal. And the tenant of such a flat holds a complete judicial arsenal to force works, cut the rent and suspend the lease clock until the flat complies. The good news is that the same statutes that arm the tenant also draw the landlord’s route back to lawful letting, including two tailor-made defences for owners of flats in Paris copropriété (co-ownership) buildings and in protected historic stock. This guide explains the position as it stands on 6 October 2026: the ban, the freeze, the tenant’s remedies, the landlord’s defences, the special case of a wrong DPE, and the Paris playbook for owners who live abroad.

I. The ban and the freeze: what a G or F rating now does to your letting

The mechanism is deliberately simple, and that simplicity is what traps absent owners. The energy class shown on the DPE is no longer a piece of information for the tenant. It is the legal switch that decides whether the flat may be let at all and whether the rent may move. Understanding the two switches, the ban and the freeze, is the precondition for every decision that follows, from answering the tenant’s letter to voting works at the general meeting.

A. Since 1 January 2025, a G-rated dwelling is legally indecent and may not be let

The foundation is Article 6 of the Act of 6 July 1989, the statute governing residential leases, which provides that « Le bailleur est tenu de remettre au locataire un logement décent ne laissant pas apparaître de risques manifestes pouvant porter atteinte à la sécurité physique ou à la santé, exempt de toute infestation d’espèces nuisibles et parasites, répondant à un niveau de performance minimal au sens de l’article L. 173-1-1 du code de la construction et de l’habitation et doté des éléments le rendant conforme à l’usage d’habitation. » (Article 6 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In plain English: the landlord must deliver a decent dwelling, free of manifest health and safety risks and compliant with a minimum energy performance level defined by reference to the Construction and Housing Code. The same article then sets the calendar that matters to you: « Le niveau de performance d’un logement décent est compris, au sens de l’article L. 173-1-1 du code de la construction et de l’habitation : 1° A compter du 1er janvier 2025, entre la classe A et la classe F ; 2° A compter du 1er janvier 2028, entre la classe A et la classe E ; 3° A compter du 1er janvier 2034, entre la classe A et la classe D. » (Article 6 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: since 1 January 2025 a decent dwelling must be rated between A and F, so every G-rated flat is excluded; from 1 January 2028 the F class joins G outside decency; from 1 January 2034 the E class follows. The article closes the trap with a single sentence: « Les logements qui ne répondent pas aux critères précités aux échéances fixées sont considérés comme non décents. » (Article 6 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: dwellings that miss these thresholds on the applicable dates are deemed indecent. The French administration states the consequence without ambiguity: since 1 January 2025 it is prohibited to put a G-rated dwelling on the rental market for a new lease. Note that the overseas departments follow a deferred calendar, with the A-to-F threshold applying there from 1 January 2028 and the A-to-E threshold from 1 January 2031, a detail that matters to owners holding property in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guiana, Réunion or Mayotte.

Three technical points complete the picture, and each of them is a frequent source of error for foreign owners. First, the classes themselves are defined by Article L. 173-1-1 of the Construction and Housing Code, which ranks existing residential buildings « par niveau de performance décroissant, en fonction de leur niveau de performance énergétique et de leur performance en matière d’émissions de gaz à effet de serre » (Article L. 173-1-1 of the Construction and Housing Code). In English: in decreasing order of performance, by energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions, with thresholds set by ministerial order. The DPE document itself is defined by Article L. 126-26 of the same Code as the assessment of actual or estimated energy consumed and emissions induced, « pour une utilisation standardisée du bâtiment » with supporting recommendations. Second, the DPE must be attached to the lease when it is signed: « En cas de location de tout ou partie d’un bâtiment, le diagnostic de performance énergétique prévu par l’article L. 126-26 est joint au contrat de location lors de sa conclusion, à l’exception des contrats de bail rural et des contrats de location saisonnière. » (Article L. 126-29 of the Construction and Housing Code). In English: on letting, the DPE is joined to the lease at signature, except for rural and seasonal leases. The same article adds that the tenant cannot hold the report’s recommendations against the landlord, since they are only informative. In practice, this means the class letter travels with the lease file, the tenant sees it, and any adviser the tenant consults sees it too. Third, the ban bites on new lettings and renewals, while the sitting tenant of an existing lease is not evicted by the mere effect of the calendar: the lease continues, but the tenant gains the remedies described in Part II, and the owner who recovers the flat, by departure, notice or court order, cannot re-let it until it complies. Selling the flat remains possible at any time, because the ban governs letting, not sale, although the buyer will price the works, though a sale with a sitting tenant protected by other rules is a separate negotiation.

Two boundary warnings deserve emphasis because foreign owners regularly misread them. The furnished tourist-rental escape route is closing: according to the trade press analysis of the 2026 rules, a dwelling newly converted to tourist furnished letting must now reach at least class E, so shifting a G-rated flat to short-term platforms is not a lawful workaround, and Paris enforces change-of-use rules energetically in any event. And there is no notice to quit for renovation works as such: the Ministry of Ecological Transition confirms that the 1989 Act offers no specific termination ground for energy renovation, so an owner cannot recover the flat merely to renovate; only the three classic grounds, genuine repossession for personal or family occupation, sale, or a legitimate and serious ground, open the door. Owners who bought Paris studios through specialist counsel for foreign real estate investors in Paris often discover these interactions only at renewal time, which is precisely why the autumn audit described below should come before any notice is served.

B. The rent freeze: no indexation, no works uplift, no renewal revaluation for F and G

If the ban is the wall, the freeze is the ceiling pressing down on owners who hoped to pass renovation costs to the tenant. Since 24 August 2022, the rents of F- and G-rated dwellings have been frozen by two interlocking prohibitions, and both apply to contracts concluded, renewed or tacitly renewed after that date. The first prohibition sits in Article 17-1 of the 1989 Act: « La révision et la majoration de loyer prévues aux I et II du présent article ne peuvent pas être appliquées dans les logements de la classe F ou de la classe G, au sens de l’article L. 173-1-1 du code de la construction et de l’habitation. » (Article 17-1 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: neither the annual index-linked revision nor the agreed increase for improvement works may be applied in F- or G-rated dwellings. Concretely, even if your lease contains an annual indexation clause tied to the official rent reference index, you may not apply it while the flat is F or G, and even if you fund improvement works mid-lease, you may not add the contractual works uplift to the rent. The second prohibition sits in Article 17-2: « Le loyer ne peut pas être réévalué lors du renouvellement du contrat dans les logements de la classe F ou de la classe G, au sens de l’article L. 173-1-1 du code de la construction et de l’habitation. » (Article 17-2 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: the rent may not be reassessed at renewal in F- or G-rated dwellings. The undervaluation procedure, with its six-month proposal, neighbourhood comparables and conciliation commission, is simply unavailable to you until the flat leaves the F and G classes.

The arithmetic consequences are immediate and should be computed before any other decision. Take a Paris flat let at 1,400 euros a month with a lease renewing in October 2026 and a G rating confirmed by a valid DPE. The owner may not apply the annual indexation, may not propose a higher renewed rent even with comparables proving undervaluation, and may not add any uplift for works carried out during the lease. Every euro of renovation is therefore borne by the owner with no rent-side recovery until a new DPE lifts the flat to E or better, at which point the ordinary rules revive for the future, without retroactive catch-up for the frozen years. This is also why the timing of a fresh DPE matters strategically: commissioning the post-works assessment promptly, and serving no renewal proposal before the improved class is documented, separates a lawful increase from an unlawful one. Conversely, serving a renewal increase while the last valid DPE still shows F or G exposes the owner to a tenant claim for repayment of the overcharge plus the broader indecency action, a compounding of disputes that careful owners avoid by sequencing works first and rent proposals second.

One further interaction tightens the vise in Paris specifically. The capital combines the national energy freeze with its own rent-cap system, and the two operate cumulatively: the lawful rent is the lower of what each regime allows. An owner who escapes the F and G classes must still comply with the Paris reference-rent framework at renewal, with its comparables and commission procedure. The practical lesson is to treat the energy exit and the rent-cap file as one combined dossier, prepared together before the renewal date, rather than discovering at the conciliation hearing that winning on energy still loses on the cap. Where the combined picture shows that the flat will never yield a market rent proportionate to the works, the honest comparison is between renovating and selling, and that comparison must be run with the capital-gains position of a non-resident seller and the state of the sitting tenancy in the same spreadsheet.

II. The tenant moves first: judicial remedies, and the landlord’s route back to lawful letting

The statutes described so far operate automatically, but their sharpest effects arrive by letter: the tenant, often advised by a local association or lawyer, formally demands compliance, and from that demand a procedural clock starts running against the owner. Foreign landlords typically receive this letter while abroad, underestimate its seriousness, and lose the two months that the law gives them to organise a response. This part explains the tenant’s weapons in order, then the landlord’s defences and the concrete action plan that Paris practice recommends.

A. The tenant’s arsenal: compliance demand, judge-ordered works, rent cuts and lease suspension

The tenant’s procedure is set by Article 20-1 of the 1989 Act, and its opening is deceptively gentle: « Si le logement loué ne satisfait pas aux dispositions des premier et deuxième alinéas de l’article 6, le locataire peut demander au propriétaire sa mise en conformité sans qu’il soit porté atteinte à la validité du contrat en cours. » (Article 20-1 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: if the let dwelling fails the decency requirements of Article 6, the tenant may demand that the owner bring it into compliance, without affecting the validity of the current lease. The tenant’s demand puts the owner on a two-month clock: without agreement or answer within two months, either side may go to the departmental conciliation commission, whose opinion is optional, since going to the commission or receiving its opinion is not a precondition for going to court. The tenant may therefore be before the judge ten weeks after his first letter, and everything the owner does in the meantime, expert assessment, contractor quotes, general-meeting motions, will be read by the court as diligence or as inertia.

The judge’s powers are the heart of the matter, and they are wide: « Le juge saisi par l’une ou l’autre des parties détermine, le cas échéant, la nature des travaux à réaliser et le délai de leur exécution. » (Article 20-1 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: the court seised by either party determines the works to be done and their deadline. Beyond ordering works, the judge may reduce the rent or suspend its payment, with or without deposit into court, and suspend the lease term itself until the works are done, and the judgment establishing indecency is transmitted to the State representative in the département. Three limits protect the owner even here, and tenants’ advisers sometimes omit them. First, the tenant may not unilaterally stop paying the rent: the Ministry confirms that the tenant remains liable for the full rent until a court recognises the indecency, fixes the works and orders the reduction or suspension. A tenant who withholds rent on his own authority accumulates arrears that the owner can pursue, whatever the energy rating. Second, the works order follows an adversarial assessment, typically with expert evidence, contractor quotes and, in copropriété, the building’s own technical documents, so the judge fixes what is technically appropriate rather than whatever the tenant lists. Third, the general law of the lease backs the tenant only within the same framework: the Civil Code obliges the landlord to deliver the dwelling and, for a principal residence, a decent one, and it warrants the tenant against defects preventing use, stating that « Il est dû garantie au preneur pour tous les vices ou défauts de la chose louée qui en empêchent l’usage, quand même le bailleur ne les aurait pas connus lors du bail. » (Article 1721 of the Civil Code). In English: the tenant is warranted against all defects preventing use, even unknown to the landlord at signature, with damages where loss follows. A G rating alone does not automatically equal such a defect in every case, but combined with cold, damp or mould, which Paris winter exposes mercilessly, it completes a file that judges find difficult to resist.

Paris courts apply these texts without hesitation, and a very recent decision shows the method. On 16 April 2026, the protection-litigation judge of the Paris judicial court, dealing with a dwelling degraded by mould and damp, ordered the social-housing landlord to strip and treat the mould, redo the coatings and, crucially, install insulation on the exterior-facing wall plus mechanical ventilation, under a penalty of 20 euros per day of delay after a three-month deadline, and awarded 500 euros in damages plus 500 euros in irrecoverable costs, recalling that the decision is provisionally enforceable. The reasoning is instructive for private foreign owners: the court relied on a bailiff’s report and an expert assessment contradicting the landlord’s minimisation, rejected the landlord’s attempt to blame ventilation behaviour without proof, and calibrated the works to the building’s pathology rather than to either party’s wish list. The lesson for the absent owner is procedural: the file that wins is built in the first weeks, with your own constat (sworn factual report) of a commissaire de justice (judicial officer), a contradictory expert assessment, dated contractor quotes and proof of every step taken at the assemblée générale (general meeting) of co-owners. The file that loses is an inbox of unanswered tenant letters followed by surprise at the hearing.

B. The landlord’s defences and the route back: copropriété diligence, heritage constraints, and the autumn action plan

The same Article 20-1 that arms the tenant provides the landlord’s two shields, and both were written with Paris stock in mind. The judge may not order energy-compliance works where the dwelling sits in a copropriété building and the co-owner owner shows that, despite his efforts to table resolutions for common-part works and to carry out suitable private-part works, the minimum level could not be reached: the text covers the owner who demonstrates that, although he pursued resolutions for common-area works and adapted private-area works, « il n’a pu parvenir à ce niveau de performance minimal » (Article 20-1 of the Act of 6 July 1989). In English: he could not reach the minimum level. The second shield covers architectural or heritage constraints that block the target despite compatible works, under criteria set by decree. Neither shield is a passive status: both must be earned with paper. For the copropriété defence, that means written requests to the syndic (building managing agent) to table energy resolutions, votes recorded in general-meeting minutes, quotes for private-part works actually commissioned, and, where the meeting refuses or defers, the minutes proving it. For the heritage defence, it means the architect’s or heritage authority’s written position showing the incompatibility. Owners who arrive at the hearing with this file do not merely resist a works order; they demonstrate the good faith that disposes judges to grant realistic deadlines and to prefer rent adjustment over punitive suspension.

With the defences understood, the autumn action plan for a foreign owner runs in a fixed order, and the order is as important as the content. First, verify the DPE itself: its date, its validity, the assessor’s certification and insurance, and whether post-2021 methodology applies, because the entire edifice, ban, freeze and tenant action, rests on that document’s class letter. If the rating looks wrong for the flat’s equipment and insulation, commission a second assessment before conceding anything; assessors err, inputs are mistyped, and a flat wrongly parked in G while truly E changes every line of the file. Second, while the assessment is checked, answer the tenant’s demand in writing within the two-month window: acknowledge receipt, state the verifications under way, give dates, and propose the conciliation commission if useful. Silence is the single most expensive option, because it converts a manageable negotiation into a court-ordered timetable with penalties. Third, build the technical file in parallel: energy audit, contractor quotes distinguishing private-part works you can order alone from common-part works requiring a general-meeting vote, and a letter to the syndic demanding that the energy works be tabled at the next meeting, or at an extraordinary meeting if the calendar requires. Fourth, decide the works-or-sale arbitrage with cold numbers: cost of works net of available aid, post-works rent under the Paris cap, months of frozen rent already lost, taxation of a non-resident sale, and the discount a buyer will demand for a G-rated flat with a sitting tenant. Fifth, execute in the right sequence: private-part works first where they suffice, voted common-part works second, fresh DPE immediately after, and only then any renewal rent proposal. Throughout, route every notice, meeting requisition and tenant reply through Paris-based representation holding a written authority, because limitation periods, meeting-convocation deadlines and the two-month tenant clock do not pause while documents cross borders. Owners who want this sequence run as one dossier regularly instruct Paris counsel acting for non-resident landlords before answering the tenant, not after the summons arrives.

Two companion risks complete the advice, and both concern the DPE document rather than the flat. If you bought the flat yourself on the faith of a flattering DPE and discover the G rating only when letting or re-letting, the diagnostician who produced the report answers for his fault, but within strict bounds set by the Cour de cassation. In a 21 November 2019 ruling, the Court held that a DPE established under the pre-July-2021 regime had, unlike the other documents of the technical file, « qu’une valeur informative » (Cass. 3rd civ., 21 November 2019, No. 18-23.251). In English: only informative value. The buyers, whose house rated D turned out near F and G, therefore recovered not the cost of insulation but damages for the lost chance to negotiate a lower price, fixed at 15,000 euros. And where both the seller and the diagnostician are condemned, there is no double recovery: on 23 October 2025 the Court quashed a 21,500-euro award against the diagnostician and his insurer, recalling that « seule constitue une perte de chance réparable la disparition actuelle et certaine d’une éventualité favorable. » (Cass. 3rd civ., 23 October 2025, No. 23-18.771). In English: only the disappearance, actual and certain, of a favourable outcome counts as a reparable loss of chance, a test the appeal court had failed to apply where the seller was already ordered to redo the insulation in full. For the buyer-turned-landlord, the parallel action in hidden defects remains: « Le vendeur est tenu de la garantie à raison des défauts cachés de la chose vendue qui la rendent impropre à l’usage auquel on la destine, ou qui diminuent tellement cet usage que l’acheteur ne l’aurait pas acquise, ou n’en aurait donné qu’un moindre prix, s’il les avait connus. » (Article 1641 of the Civil Code). In English: the seller warrants hidden defects making the property unfit for use or so reducing that use that the buyer would not have bought, or would have paid less. But the clock is short: « L’action résultant des vices rédhibitoires doit être intentée par l’acquéreur dans un délai de deux ans à compter de la découverte du vice. » (Article 1648 of the Civil Code). In English: two years from discovery. A foreign owner who discovers in 2026 that the 2024 DPE was fantasy should therefore run the diagnostician file and the works file simultaneously, not sequentially, because the two-year clock does not wait for the renovation to finish.

Conclusion

A G rating on your Paris flat is not a label to file away; since 1 January 2025 it is a legal status with three immediate effects. The flat may not be re-let as it stands, because it is deemed indecent. Its rent is frozen on every axis, indexation, works uplift and renewal revaluation, until a new assessment lifts it out of the F and G classes. And the sitting tenant holds a fast, judge-backed procedure to compel works, cut or suspend the rent and freeze the lease clock, a procedure he can open ten weeks after his first unanswered letter. Against this, the landlord is far from helpless: the copropriété-diligence and heritage defences, honestly documented, reshape the court order; the works-or-sale arbitrage, computed with Paris rents and non-resident taxation in the same frame, restores choice; and a wrong DPE opens a diagnostician and hidden-defects file with Cour de cassation case law fixing the measure of damages. October, with the heating season restarting and renewal dates clustering, is the month to commission the audit, answer the tenant in writing, seize the syndic in due form and sequence works before any rent proposal. Handled in that order, the energy constraint becomes a managed project with an end date; handled in reverse, it becomes a judgment with a daily penalty.