Decree No. 2014-1334 of November 5, 2014, concerning local rent observatories, the procedures for communicating and disseminating their data, and the creation of the Scientific Committee for Rent Observation, which entered into force on November 8, 2014, establishes the procedures by which the Minister for Housing grants or withdraws accreditation for local rent observatories. It specifies, in particular, the form and content of the accreditation application. These elements are further clarified by the Order of November 10, 2014, concerning local rent observatories and the procedures for communicating and disseminating their data, which sets out the list of documents to be submitted with the application.
These texts were adopted for the implementation of the ALUR Law, which provides for the creation of local rent observatories (Article 16 of Law No. 89-462 of July 6, 1989, aimed at improving landlord-tenant relations, as amended by the ALUR Law). These observatories, created at the initiative of local authorities and inter-municipal bodies, are tasked with collecting data on rents in a specific geographical area and making statistical results available to the public.
The decree of November 5, 2014, makes the granting of accreditation conditional upon several factors, including:
- compliance with the methodological prescriptions defined by a committee, created by the decree, namely, the scientific committee for the observation of rents;
- the existence of a balanced representation of landlords, tenants and managers within the governing bodies of the observatory as well as the presence of qualified personalities in the field of housing or statistics.
Article 3 of the decree sets out the procedures for communicating the data collected by the observatories to public and private entities. This article also stipulates the annual publication of the observatory's results. This publication must take place before March 31st of each year (Article 2 of the decree of November 10, 2014). These results must include:
- the median and average level of rent at the scale of the agglomeration;
- the median and average rent level by geographical area;
- framework data on the housing stock observed;
- the main trends in the rental market if changes in rental levels are observed.
