ZERP Tenancy Law Project
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 290694. TENLAW: Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Multi-level Europe National Report for LUXEMBOURG Author Marta Santos Silva Team Leader Prof. Dr. Christoph Schmid National Supervisors Avocat avoué Jerôme Krier Maître Saliha Dekhar Other contributors Dr. Julien Licheron Mr Romain Schanen Peer reviewers Prof.dr.sc. Tatjana Josipović Dr József Hegedüs (PhD) Dipl. engineer Ioan Bejan Mr Mark Jordan Table of Contents2 Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. Housing situation ....................................................................................... 4 1.1. General features ..................................................................................... 4 1.2. Historical evolution of the national housing situation and housing policy 4 1.3 Current situation ..................................................................................... 21 1.4 Types of housing tenures ....................................................................... 27 1.5. Other general aspects ........................................................................... 50 2. Economic urban and social factors ..................................................... 53 2.1 Current situation of the housing market ................................................. 53 2.2 Issues of price and affordability .............................................................. 63 2.3. Tenancy contracts and investment ....................................................... 70 2.4. Other economic factors ......................................................................... 75 2.5 Effects of the current crisis ..................................................................... 78 2.6 Urban aspects of the housing situation ............................................... 81 2.7 Social aspects of the housing situation .................................................. 87 3 Housing policies and related policies ........................................................ 88 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................... 88 3.2 Governmental actors .......................................................................... 90 3.3 Housing policies ..................................................................................... 91 3.4 Urban policies ........................................................................................ 93 3.5 Energy policies ....................................................................................... 96 3.6 Subsidization........................................................................................ 100 3.7 Taxation ............................................................................................ 105 4. Regulatory types of rental and intermediate tenures .............................. 111 4.1 Classifications of different types of regulatory tenures ......................... 111 4.2 Regulatory types of tenures without a public task ................................ 111 4.3 Regulatory types of tenures with a public task ..................................... 115 2 This report will be periodically updated. For queries or comments, please contact [email protected]. 2 5. Origins and development of tenancy law ............................................... 124 6. Tenancy regulation and its context ........................................................ 127 6.1 General introduction ............................................................................. 127 6. 2 Preparation and negotiation of tenancy contracts ............................... 136 6.3 Conclusion of tenancy contracts .......................................................... 141 6.4 Contents of tenancy contracts.............................................................. 153 6.6 Termination of tenancy contracts ......................................................... 188 6.7 Enforcing tenancy contracts ................................................................. 196 6.8 Tenancy law and procedure “in action” ................................................ 199 7. Effects of EU law and policies on national tenancy policies and law...... 203 7.1 EU policies and legislation affecting national housing policies ............. 203 7.2 EU policies and legislation affecting national tenancy laws ................. 203 7.3 Table of transposition of EU legislation ................................................ 208 8. Typical national cases (with short solutions): ......................................... 232 8.1 Unjustified withholding of the deposit by the landlord .......................... 232 8.2 Inflated rental increases ....................................................................... 233 8.3 Wrongful increase of rents ................................................................... 233 8.4 Delayed payment , partial payment or non-payment of the rent or associated costs by the tenant ................................................................... 234 8.5 Termination by the tenant without regard to the legal requirements .... 235 8.6 Termination by the tenant without regard to the contractual requirements ................................................................................................................... 235 8.7 Termination by the landlord without regard to the legal requirements .. 235 8.8 Calculation of the associated costs ...................................................... 236 8.9 Inventory .............................................................................................. 237 8.10 Illegal terms........................................................................................ 237 9. Tables .................................................................................................... 238 9.1 List of literature cited (including abbreviated form) ............................... 238 9.2 List of most frequent cases brought before justice ............................... 249 9.3 Abbreviations ....................................................................................... 251 3 1. Housing situation 1.1. General features 1.2. Historical evolution of the national housing situation and housing policy Please describe the historic evolution of the national housing situation and housing policies briefly. o In particular: Please describe briefly the evolution of the principal types of housing tenures from the 1990s on. Explain the growth and decline of the different tenures and the reasons why that happened (e.g. privatization or other policies). Between 1991 and 2001, and according to official data, the number of households resident in Luxembourg grew 19% (from 144,686 households to 171,953). This phenomenon was attributed to immigration, which increased 53% in that period of time, but also to the overall decrease of the number of persons per household3. The number of inhabited dwellings also increased between 1991 and 2001. This was particularly so in the country’s most populous cities (Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg and Differdange), where there was an increase of 1,000 newly inhabited dwellings, but also in the municipalities geographically close to these cities, i.e., Bertrange and Roeser, which registered about 500 additional inhabited dwellings. This growth revealed a new phenomenon of urban expansion to the periphery of the urban centres and the rural municipalities in the north of the country4, which included the construction of new dwellings5. During the 1990s, the rate of homeownership increased slightly from 64 to 67%. The increase in the percentage of people who opted for apartments during this decade was statistically more important (31%) than the increase of those who opted for living in isolated, semi-detached dwellings or townhouses (13%)6. Due to this significant demand, the number of apartments per building block suffered an increase of 0.3 (4.7 dwellings in 2001, against 4.3 in 1991)7. Dwellings were also improved in the decade from 1991 to 2001. The size of dwellings, in particular the number of rooms, was adapted to the structure of the households: On the one hand, dwellings with one to three rooms and dwellings with more than seven rooms slightly increased (respectively, from 15% in 1991 to 16% in 2001 and from 28% in 1991 to 30% in 2001); on the other 3 Observatoire de l’Habitat – Logements habités, 2003, p. 1. 4 Observatoire de l’Habitat – Logements habités, 2003, p. 3 5 Observatoire de l’Habitat – Logements habités, 2003, p. 3. See figs 2 (Evolution of the stock of inhabited dwellings between 1991 and 2001 in Luxembourg (II)) and 8 (“Characteristics of the Housing Stock in Luxembourg”). 6 See fig. 3 (Evolution of the kinds of dwellings between 1991 and 2001 in Luxembourg). 7 Observatoire de l’Habitat – Logements habités, 2003, p. 3 and n. 4. 4 hand, dwellings with four to six rooms decreased (from 56% in 1991 to 53% in 2001)8. In this period people started demanding comfortable homes9. As a response to these demands, there was a significant improvement in the spatial and technical comfort of the dwellings. The average surface per capita went from 119 m2 in 1991 to 126 m2 in 200110. Moreover, the number of dwellings with central heating increased by 8% (from 84% in 1991 to 82% in 2001) and so did the number of dwellings with sanitation11. Fig. 1 Evolution of the stock of inhabited dwellings between 1991 and 2001 in Luxembourg