Beware of unpleasant end-of-year surprises.
Watch out for your wallet, a new bill is about to arrive to all tenants in France. If real estate taxation now falls exclusively on owners, renting a property does not mean that you are completely exempt from certain charges since the removal of the housing tax. You still have to plan for it in your expenses.
A few weeks ago, all owners received an important tax document: the property tax notice. If most only look at the total amount to pay to the tax authorities, written in large format on the first page, all those who have a property rented for the year must focus on the second part of the document. Page n°2 details the calculation of this local tax and allows you to understand what part of the total is paid to which community. Among these elements, one must be paid by the tenant.
In the middle of all the columns, a tax only concerns the resident of the place. This is the tax on household waste, which can also be indicated under the name “TEOM”. This is in the fifth column. The amount to read is that indicated on the “2024 Contribution” line.
This is not regulated at national level: it is generally the intercommunal authorities which decide on the rate applied. As a result, the amount varies from a few dozen to several hundred euros per home, depending on the property and the city in which it is located.
If the property tax must be paid in full by the owner, it is up to the tenant to pay the TEOM. The owner can therefore demand reimbursement of the amount. Now that the exact amounts are known, many tenants should therefore be ordered by their landlord to pay them this debt in addition to the monthly rent.
However, everything depends on what the rental contract provides: either it is stipulated that the owner makes the claim upon receipt or payment of the property tax, or this is already provisioned in the charges, in which case a catch-up will be carried out on the anniversary date of the lease in the event of insufficient provision.
Regardless, tenants should remember to include this expense in their budget. Because like everything else, the tax has obviously increased again. Difficult to make a precise estimate given the volatility of the tax. However, for those who paid it in 2023, there should be approximately a 4 to 5% increase compared to the last amount.