Spain: Parliament re-votes housing decrees after lead

O the spanish parliament again debated and voted on thursday the two government decrees with measures for housing that the deputies ‘sucked’ in october, precipitating the call for early elections to november 29.

After the dissolution of the parliament on 5 October, the Council of Ministers of Spain again approved the two decrees and now hopes to circumvent at least partially the previous ‘lead’.

The decrees will be voted on this time by a permanent parliamentary committee, which replaces the plenary dissolved during the election period.

On this committee, the right-wing parties that have ‘sucked’ the previous decrees (Popular Party, Together by Catalonia and Vox) no longer have a majority, contrary to what happened in plenary.

The executive, led by the socialists, has the ratification of at least one of the decrees, with urgent and temporary measures focused on limiting evictions and controlling the increase in income, among other things.

The vote on the permanent committee of the Congress of Deputies takes place on the eve of the official start of the election campaign on Friday, and one day after the first general strike in Spain in 14 years, which had as direct motivation the difficulties of access to housing.

The decrees contain 21 measures and are almost the same as those that were ‘sucked’ in early October.

One of them – and one that the Spanish Government expects to see approved – includes restrictions on evictions by 2030, as well as the automatic extension, for up to two years, of current lease contracts that expire before 2028.

It also lays down limits to the purchase of a house by investment funds until 2030.

The package includes more tax benefits for owners and some tenants, first house purchase aids, limitation of annual rent updates to 2% (even if inflation was higher) or regulation of room rental and seasonal lease.

A financing line of EUR 10,000 million is also set up for interest-free loans of up to EUR 50,000 for those buying the first house, regardless of age.

PP, Vox and JxCat voted against these measures because they considered that they were poorly prepared, created legal uncertainty and would have the opposite effect, leading to the removal of homes to rent from the market and to further hinder access to housing for vulnerable people.

The second decree states that leases in Spain are to be made to time indefinite, with automatic renewals for periods of five or seven years if the tenant is complying with payments and if the owner does not need the house to live or for the children.

If the owner decides not to renew the contract for other reasons, he must compensate the tenant with the equivalent of 12 monthly rents.

This decree had in October the vote against more parties and will continue, at the outset, without sufficient support also in the permanent committee of parliament.