The PP will vote "no" this Friday to the two housing decrees that the Council of Ministers approved this week. And it will do so for two reasons. The first, because he believes that they are two "botches" and that they generate enormous legal uncertainty. The second, because it does not share the vast majority of the measures they contain. The PP, the main opposition party, has an alternative program to alleviate the residential crisis, which involves freeing up the maximum possible land to build both private and public apartments.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo's plan involves promoting the construction of one million homes in four years, as the president of the popular parties has been ensuring in recent years. But yesterday the PP increased its commitment to three million homes in 14 years, until 2040. This was confirmed by sources from Genoa. And an "important" part would be social housing at an assessed price.
The Deputy Secretary of Finance and Housing of the PP, Juan Bravo, summed it up like this: "Housing must be built, procedures must be simplified and reduced, an anti-squatter law must be approved" and tax incentives and direct aid must be approved to facilitate access for families.
The PP is committed to the administrations covering the guarantee of 20% of mortgages, a personal income tax bonus for four years for young people who save for a home, lowering the VAT on housing to 4% and continuing to reduce the Property Transfer Tax (ITP). In addition, he wants to launch a "young piggy bank" for real estate savings, because currently the average age of home purchase is 41.8 years.
Regarding urban planning, the main opposition party advocates establishing "positive silence" for land procedures, so that it can be built in 18 months, and not in eight years. And that will lower prices, to "pay 30% of what you earn at most." In renting, it affects the need for deductions for those who rent at a low price.
Popular sources also sent a warning to Junts and PNV before this Friday's vote, and called on them to assess the consequences of supporting two decrees that, according to the PP, go deeper into the policies that have contributed to reducing supply and tense the housing market.
In fact, the main opposition party predicts a flood of lawsuits due to the "botched" of the two decrees, and a strong rebound in squatting and "unrest," as Bravo himself said in statements to the media.
The national directorate of Genoa estimates that thousands of landlords and tenants can sue the effects of both decrees. Because? Because the second of them - that of the automatic extension of rents - corrects and repeals an important part of the first of them - which stops evictions, extends the duration of leases and encourages landlords.
And that has caused not only a decrease in the supply of rentals, according to the popular ones, but also thousands of tenants trying to protect their rents during the hours in which the second of the decrees will be in force (from midnight on Friday until it is repealed, predictably, by Congress).
In the opinion of the Genoa management, a flurry of lawsuits will be generated, because for hours there will be two regulations in force. "More mess" and more "Government bungling," they criticize. And that will not only lower the rental supply (there are already 4,000 fewer apartments on the portals, in just 24 hours, they say), but there will also be a great increase in litigation.
