Next Tuesday, September 29, the last deadline set by the Government to approve the new housing law decree in the Council of Ministers will be met, after postponing it to the end of July due to the lack of parliamentary support.
Among other measures, the text proposed by the Executive includes the automatic extension of rental contracts until 2028, the regulation of seasonal and room rentals, the increase to 21% of VAT on tourist apartments and measures to increase the supply of affordable housing.
The decree, agreed between PSOE and Sumar, is structured around two blocks: measures to provide stability to rents and combat fraud, including the regulation of seasonal contracts and rooms and tax credits for owners who reduce rents, and actions to mobilize affordable housing, such as the reform of the Land Law. The text also contemplates negotiating measures to protect vulnerable families against evictions. However, differences with the groups that have to support the decree in Congress have stopped the Government from presenting the decree.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, acknowledged at the end of August that some measures are "excessive" for Junts and, on the other hand, "insufficient" for Sumar. The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, has asked the groups to make a "generous effort" and has defended that the text includes initiatives proposed by different groups.
Junts demands that the decree focus on increasing supply and questions price caps because, in their opinion, they do not generate new homes. Among its proposals are tax aid for owners, such as deducting rental costs or part of the mortgage payment for small owners. The Government and Sumar have opened the door to studying tax credits for owners, although Junts has not yet guaranteed its support.
Sumar, for its part, defends the extension of contracts and greater protection of tenants, in addition to the regulation of seasonal rentals and rooms and measures on tourist apartments. In recent days, pressure has increased on the PSOE following the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who had lived for more than seven decades in a house in Madrid, and is demanding measures to prevent the evictions of vulnerable people.
The minority partner has also proposed the expropriation of Maricarmen's home to incorporate it into the public park and has defended limiting the acquisition of homes by investment funds. The Minister of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, Pablo Bustinduy, demanded on September 16 to bring the decree "now" to Congress even if there was not a guaranteed majority and criticized the groups that, according to him, do not want to intervene in the housing market.
Podemos maintains a position further away from the text. It rejects tax benefits for owners and demands measures to reduce prices, protect tenants and avoid evictions without housing alternatives. Its main red line is the reform of the Land Law, which requires the withdrawal of the decree and which the party considers linked to a reduction in urban planning controls. The National Construction Confederation, on the other hand, has defended this reform as a necessary measure to increase supply.
For its part, the PNV has proposed limiting the extension to tenants who are up to date with payments, in addition to demanding land reform, regulation of seasonal rentals and respect for regional powers, while ERC has focused on empty housing and demands data on the ownership of these properties, while the PP defends increasing the supply and providing land and has questioned the Government's interventionist approach.
The Maricarmen case last Wednesday has also added a new element to the negotiation. The Government and Sumar defend strengthening protection against evictions, while the PP maintains that the previous anti-eviction decree would not have prevented this launch due to the characteristics of the woman's contract. The issue of evictions thus adds to the already existing differences on prices, rents, taxation, tourist housing and land reform.
Outside of Parliament, CCOO and UGT have demanded an agreement between political forces, while the Confederation of Tenants' Unions demands that the new decree include structural measures against evictions, freezing of rents, effective extensions and automatic renewal of contracts.
With this scenario, the Government has neither confirmed nor denied that the decree will be addressed this Tuesday in the last Council of Ministers of the month of September as announced in July. However, Isabel Rodríguez assured on Thursday that Maricarmen's eviction has "removed the conscience" of the political groups and "has brought together some positions that until now were more distant."
Likewise, he indicated that the groups' commitment is "to be able to approve it as soon as possible." "I know that it is not understood," he stressed, explaining that the Government could "approve it tomorrow" but that without the support of the rest of the groups in Congress this decree will not become law and nothing will have been "achieved."
As explained by the minister, the royal decree addresses the housing problem in a "structural way", covering evictions, mobilization of empty housing, the construction of public housing or intervention in tourist apartments, among other topics, although evictions are "curiously" one of the aspects where they encounter the most "pitfalls" and "differences" in Congress.
