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The law, which consolidates the rent ceiling throughout Spain, is sent to the Senate for its entry into force before 28M
27 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Plenary of the Congress of Deputies approved this Thursday the Bill for the Right to Housing with the support of 176 votes that represent the absolute majority of the chamber, compared to 167 against.
Specifically, the text has had the vote in favor of PSOE, Unidas Podemos, Esquerra Republicana (ERC), Bildu, Más País, Compromís, the PRC and Teruel Existe, while the BNG has abstained, although it has also criticized for the invasion of powers.
The PP, Vox, Ciudadanos and Foro Asturias have been opposed, but also the PNV, Junts, PDeCAT, the CUP and the Canary Islands Coalition, which in their case allege invasion of State powers towards the autonomous communities.
In this way the norm, which had been blocked in Congress for more than a year, will now go to the Senate, with the aim of speeding up its processing so that it enters into force before the regional and municipal elections on May 28.
Among other measures, the Housing Law will impose new limits on the rise in rental prices throughout Spain, will allow the figure of large homeowners to be reduced from ten to five properties in certain cases and will prevent these owners from evicting vulnerable tenants without a act of conciliation or prior arbitration.
Specifically, the norm maintains the 2% limit for this year in the rent increase and raises it to 3% in 2024 so that, before December 31 of next year, create a new reference index applicable to the territory outside of the CPI.
On the other hand, the law will allow the concept of large holders to be reduced from ten to five properties and will extend the restrictions for landlords contemplated in stressed areas to individuals.
In addition, the new law introduces a series of measures to make it difficult to evict people in a situation of economic vulnerability, especially when the landlord is a large property owner. In this way, evictions cannot be carried out without a predetermined time and date.
FIGHT AGAINST THE “LAW OF THE JUNGLE” OF THE REAL ESTATE MARKET
To defend the bill, two of the main negotiators of the bill have appeared, the Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra; and the Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez.
In the first place, Ione Belarra has pointed out that if a State Housing Law has not been possible before in Spanish democracy, it is because the country’s housing policy is the story of the “great Spanish scam”. Specifically, she has indicated that so far housing in Spain has become a “big business” built under the “consensus of the ball” and “speculation.”
Belarra has also denounced that the rent has become a “machine to extract resources” from the “popular classes” and the “most humble people.” It is so, says the minister, because for too long “the housing market in Spain has been the law of the jungle” and has always sided with “those who have the most.”
Among other points, the Minister of Social Rights has remarked that the rule begins to intervene in the rental market “in a structural way”, extends the protection to vulnerable tenants in evictions and begins to mobilize the “enormous” volume of empty homes in Spain .
For her part, the Minister for Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez, has defended that the bill is aligned with the Government’s urban agenda, which aims to “promote social cohesion, seek equity and guarantee the right of access to housing.
During his speech, he recognized the role and work of the Ministry of Social Rights, led by Ione Belarra, as well as the other parliamentary groups participating in the negotiations.
Thus, he has stressed that the law is “ambitious” and seeks to reorient all housing policy in Spain, which in his opinion had been consolidated in a model of “lights and shadows” and “too prone to generate phenomena of speculation and blind to barriers to access to housing for broad sectors”.
WE CAN AND PSOE DEFEND THE “PARADIGM CHANGE” THAT THE LAW IMPOSES
On behalf of United We Can, Pilar Garrido, has stressed that the law changes the “paradigm” of housing in Spain, because it assumes this matter as an “essential good” and not as a “market good”.
However, he has emphasized that “there are steps to be taken” to achieve a “safe” and “affordable” rental, as well as for tenant unions to be present in negotiations with large owners. Regarding evictions, he explained that what the law introduces is a “guarantee” process for vulnerable families.
Lastly, the PSOE deputy for Huelva, José Luis Ramos, has defended that with the approval of the norm the construction of the Welfare State will be completed, because without decent housing, he said, “you cannot be healthy, nor can you can exercise the right to dependency”.
ERC AND BILDU CONSIDER THE NECESSARY LAW
Faced with the allegations of alleged invasion of jurisdiction by groups such as the PNV, PDeCAT, Junts or the CUP, the ERC deputy, Pilar Vallugera, has begun her intervention acknowledging that housing powers are exclusive to the autonomous communities, but has recalled that in Catalonia a rent containment law was published and the Constitutional Court appealed against it.
“Do we want to intervene in the rental income market or are we going to stay defending its position of non-intervention?” Vallugera has reproached groups such as PDeCAT, Junts and PNV.
Additionally, he has made a subsection to various formations for their references to the alleged ‘squatting’. “Who do you call ‘squatters’, those who have not been able to pay the mortgage after 15 years and for two receipts are going to lose everything they have invested? Those are neighbors who are going through a bad time,” he stressed.
For his part, the deputy spokesman for EH Bildu, Oskar Matute, pointed out that the law is “a short but necessary step”. And it is that, in his opinion, the alternative would be the “deregulation” of the market so that the large owners “run free.” He has also stressed that “far from being a centralizing text, it is enabling.”
PP, CITIZENS AND VOX CHARGE AGAINST THE ‘OKUPATION’
In addition to the issue of jurisdiction, another of the issues that has generated criticism of this rule has been ‘squatting’, since for groups such as PP, Ciudadanos or Vox it allows for this practice.
In fact, Vox has completely discarded the idea of supporting the law, because in his opinion, expressed by Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, the rule provides “protection for ‘squatting'”, supposes a “deterioration of legal security” and it will also generate “soaring rental prices”. “Consolidate Spain as a paradise for ‘squatters'”, he has come to say in his speech.
The spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, began her speech by saying that the text is “electoral”, “empty” and “counterproductive”. This is because she, in her opinion, intervenes in prices, something that “does not work”, and contributes “legal uncertainty to the owners”.
On the side of the PP, Ana María Zurita Expósito has said that the law only favors the ‘squatters’ and has also warned that the norm “will fall” before the first appeal of any autonomous community for the matter of jurisdiction.
In addition, it has denounced that private owners will have more obligations than public housing entities. For all these reasons, the PP deputy has warned that the rule will have “many unwanted effects.”
