Paris rentals with Parisaddress and Parisianhome

There is huge upheaval in the Paris market at the moment and many places are likely to vaporise in the short and medium term because of a big crackdown on illegal apartments. It is very fluid, as you will see if you browse around any of the recent France postings with titles similar to yours.

All apartments have to be registered and from the first of the year display their registration number prominently on any advertising including listings to rent.

At this moment in time it is "fasten your seatbelts and hang on" time.

Have you manage to retrieve both of the deposits you have paid?

JD, I'll be watching this space for more of your report.

I'm considering an apartment in Paris next summer (or 2019) for 10 days with my children; I guess now is a good time to sit out this upheaval and wait for it to sort itself out.

@Nigel, thanks also for your info.

I'm still waiting for a reply from Parisianhome and/or Parisaddress. The whereabouts of the deposits and the availability of the most recently "confirmed" apartment is still unknown.

Did you send a check or credit card?
If so, you can cancel the check and have the credit card company investigate for fraud.
I'd get on this right away.

Just to clarify, what is referred to as an illegal apartment.
For years homeowners/apartment owners have been listed units for rent in ways that violate Paris law.
The law permits only renting a residential classified unit you own for a small number of days per year, so most places available for a good portion of the year were likely illegal just no one enforced it or really looked into the issue. Now they are cracking down.
So a place you thought was perfectly legit and may have had a great stay at or even a great stay 5 times over the past 5 years could now all of sudden disappear from the market on you.

There seems to be a new system in place so for a few months until that gets more universally accepted it will be an uncertain time.

I imagine the extra taxes and insurances involved with now registering a unit you own as rental unit with the city will mean many places will stop renting overnight.

You should most definitely get your deposit back though!

We, too, have rented for quite a few years from Paris Address and have always had a good experience dealing with them. Last spring we booked an apartment for the month of November. In mid October, I saw a post on TripAdvisor from someone saying they thought Paris Address had gone out of business. Their phone had been disconnected, etc. We were very upset, as we had paid in full and we were only 2 weeks away from leaving for Paris. I started sending them emails and did not get a response, so I contacted my credit card company. The credit card company went to bat for me (thank goodness we had paid by credit card). About a week later, we heard from Paris Address saying they had merged with Parisian Home, the rental laws had changed and that the apartment we rented had been sold. They offered us 2 alternate apartments, neither of which were suitable for our needs. (Unbelievably, the original apartment was still listed on their website as available). They agreed to refund our money in full, which was a relief. We were lucky to find alternate lodging with another company about a block from where we have always stayed with Paris Address. We will arrive in Paris on Tuesday morning, hoping it all works out for us. I wonder if we had not contacted Paris Address, would they have let us arrive in Paris and have no place to stay?

@ Jeannette, Thank goodness that you were proactive and were able to find a good replacement apartment. I hope that your trip goes well. That would have been awful if you had shown up to no apartment available for you though maybe ParisAddress was waiting until the absolute last minute and then you would have had to take one of their other apartments because you would have had no time to look for a replacement before leaving for Paris. Either way not letting you until the last minute or never letting you know about the change in status of the apartment was extremely unprofessional and disgraceful.

It's a simple matter to remove apartments from any website. Perhaps the apartments in question are being sold...which normally takes 3 to 6 months.

We are looking at renting in April 2018 for a group of 6 so will be watching this forum for updates.
We have booked into a hotel as a back up as I suspect that with the pending changes there will be more demand for hotel rooms.

This is all very concerning. So what is the best route to take when planning a trip for next spring (May 2018)? Should we wait to find/book an apartment until January or February?

Alert: The Parisaddress web site apparently functions as a kind of "zombie"--it offers rentals, accepts deposits and confirms bookings, even when the flat offered for rent is not available. As I noted above, I received confirmation of a booking made on 9 October on the Parisaddress site, then heard from Parisianhome (which claims to have merged with Parisaddress) by email that the flat was not available. Since the flats offered by Parisianhome did not interest me, I requested the return of my deposit. Subsequently, Parisianhome did not reply to any further email from me. I sent an insured letter with a tracking number enclosing all the correspondence to the Parisaddress postal address. It was received (according to the postal tracking number) and I have received no reply of any kind.

My credit card issuer is working to recover the deposit.
I simply want to alert everyone that the Parisaddress site functions only to accept money that disappears, without providing anything except a "confirmation" message in return.

As detailed in the above post, I would imagine that there will be lots of slippery operations between now and Jan. 1st as far as apartment rentals go. My advice would be to wait on booking anything until registration numbers are in place and then book only if a registration number is posted for the apartment you choose to rent. If you want to make a firm commitment for lodgings before then, I suggest a hotel.

Thanks for the advice. Is this registration number policy going to be throughout France or just in Paris?

My understanding could be wrong. I think that cities over 200,000 pop. have a choice as to whether or not to apply registration laws. Regardless of city size, suburbs of Paris are included in this law. (de la petite couronne parisienne) but I don't know the exact geographical limits of that.

Happy ending to our saga: our credit card issuer recovered the deposit from Parisaddress/Parisianhome (see my 18 October posting), but I'm certainly not planning to deal with Parisianhome in the future. I'll welcome any suggestions for other rental agencies, however.

Great news. Maybe Paris Perfect for another agency.

The only legal apartments will be those that have 13-digit registration numbers, after December, 2017.
That's all you need to know.

Agencies are not breaking the law by not posting the registration numbers on their websites.
But I would inquire whether or not the property owner has gotten around to apply for the 13-digit registration number.

I'm a user/fan of Cobblestone Paris Rentals, www.cobblestoneparis.com.