The energy performance certificate, known as the Diagnostic de Performance Énergétique (DPE), has become one of the cornerstones of the French property market.
Mandatory for all property sales and rentals, it ranks homes from A to G according to their energy consumption and environmental impact.
However, behind this now central tool lies a growing number of potentially fraudulent certificates and overly close ties between real estate agencies and energy assessors.
According to a recent study by KRNO, a start-up specialising in DPE data analysis, the share of certificates considered fraudulent or highly suspicious rose from 2.6% in 2021 to 4.3% in the first half of 2025.
In some segments of the older housing stock or in high-pressure urban markets, the figure reportedly reaches as high as 17%.
“This is not a system bug; it’s a reaction to economic constraints. The higher the cost of a downgrade in the ranking, the stronger the temptation to ‘gain a letter’,” explained Ruben Arnold, CEO of KRNO.
As regulations have tightened, notably with expensive mandatory energy audits for class E to G properties, and reinforced bans on the letting of energy-inefficient F and G properties, the pressure on owners has intensified.
A poor rating can now block a sale, prevent a property from being let out, or significantly reduce its market value.
According to the French notaires, a house rated G sells on average for 25% less than a comparable house rated D. The price gap is around 18% between F and D rated homes.
As a result, some owners seek at all costs to avoid a poor energy rating. In that effort, they sometimes find support where neutrality should prevail.
In theory, DPE assessors must be fully independent. In practice, relationships between real estate agencies and assessors are often close, recurring, and economically unbalanced.
Agencies, which generate a steady flow of assignments, act as key intermediaries. For assessors, losing a partnership with a large agency can mean a significant loss of revenue.
In some cases, agencies systematically recommend a “partner” assessor to their clients, officially for convenience or speed, but sometimes unofficially to secure more favourable results. Such proximity creates clear conflicts of interest.
The most blatant of the frauds, reports KRNO, involves issuing a certificate without any on-site inspection, relying solely on information provided by the owner or the agency. Other practices are more subtle: overstating insulation quality, selecting advantageous calculation parameters, or offering an “optimistic” interpretation of outdated heating systems.
KRNO has identified a suspicious concentration of EPCs just above critical regulatory thresholds, particularly between F and E, or E and D, just enough to avoid an energy audit or a rental ban. “The EPC does not withstand economic pressure,” the start-up’s analysis concludes.
According to KRNO, nearly 1.3 million homes may have benefited from “lenient” or falsified EPCs. The estimated cost amounts to €21.4 billion, notably through misallocated public subsidies and delayed renovation works.
“The credibility of the EPC, an instrument meant to ensure transparency, is being called into question,” warns an analysis by SeLoger, the on-line property portal.
Tightening of Rules
In response to widespread concern, the government has stepped up enforcement. “We will quadruple the number of annual inspections of energy assessors and significantly increase penalties,” announced Housing Minister Valérie Létard last year. Sanctions can now include up to two years’ suspension from practice.
Additional measures include a cap on the number of DPEs an assessor can issue each year, stricter certification requirements, and the introduction of a mandatory QR code on every certificate, allowing verification of its authenticity and the assessor’s identity.
The problem for buyers and tenants in all of this is that it is the seller or the landlord who organises the DPE and selects the assessor. One potential safeguard is to ask for the actual energy bills from the seller/landlord and compare those with the figures contained in the DPE report.
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