The city of Barcelona does not meet the legal conditions to be declared a stressed market area established by the new law on the Right to Housing, so rent ceilings cannot be applied, according to a study presented by the Chamber of Urban Property of Barcelona, ​​which concludes that, in the metropolitan area, Sabadell and Santa Coloma de Gramenet do not meet the legal requirements either.
The manager of the Chamber, Óscar Gorgues, pointed out that the entity has used the data and the methodology that the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council used to apply the Catalan income control law in 2020, updating them because the new law requires calculating the increases suffered by the real estate market in the last five years.
Replicating these calculations, points out Gorgues, in the capital only the districts of Ciutat Vella, Sarrià -Sant Gervasi and Sant Martà would meet any of the requirements established by law, which, however, does not contemplate declaring stressed areas below the municipal level. Sarrià and Sant Martà could declare themselves tense, because the increase in sales prices in the last five years is more than 3 points higher than the cumulative increase in the CPI. And Ciutat Vella, because the effort to pay the rent exceeds 30% of the personal income of the inhabitants of the district, being 31%.
According to official data used by the Chamber, for the city as a whole the charge on average household income is 24.11% in the case of mortgages and 22.46% in the case of rent, without reaching to the 30% that establishes the norm as a maximum.
Regarding the increase in prices, the average rent has risen in the last five years by 10.47% and the average sale price by 13.27%, compared to an average increase in the CPI of 11.64%. In both cases, therefore, the increases do not exceed the maximum provided by law, which would be 14.64% (three points above the CPI).
“Let’s hope that the administrations do not choose to declare only some district as a stressed area, because that will have a negative impact on that area of ​​the city and will divert investments,” Gorgues acknowledged.
Joan Rà fols, president of the institution, clarified that “from the Chamber we are not saying at all that there are no tensions in the real estate market in Barcelona, ​​because there are. But the requirements of the law are not met. The origin of the problem is the lack of supply and that the law not only does not address it but also makes it worseâ€.
RÃ fols also highlighted that if the calculations are made based on the state rental index, which uses the data declared by the landlords in the IRPF and therefore the housing stock and not the contracts that are signed each year, the effort in the access to housing is even lower.
The Chamber has also studied the situation in the metropolitan area as a whole, and although no city complies with the 30% effort, due to the increase in purchase and sale prices in the last five years, all towns would be included, except Sabadell and Santa Gramenet’s Coloma. “We believe that the price increase is partly due to new construction developments, which are more expensive and make averages rise, but the law does not provide for these nuances,” admitted Gorgues.
RÃ fols advanced that the Chamber is waiting to see what the Generalitat does, which has already announced that it has begun the procedures to declare tense areas, and advanced that “they will be active in defense of the rights of the owners” and “belligerent”, taking to court the declarations of stressed area when they are made.
Rà fols explained that they have already done so in the application of Catalan law, and when the administration rejected their allegations they filed a contentious-administrative lawsuit, the result of which, he acknowledged, they had not reported until now. “The court, at our request, suspended in a precautionary manner the declaration of stressed areas in Barcelona, ​​but since the Constitutional Court invalidated the law, this has no longer been relevant. The judicial procedure, however, is still open.
The Chamber of Property has already made the calculations of the assumptions provided by law in different locations in order to act quickly in the public information period and present the corresponding allegations. “With the Catalan law they left 15 days, and some administrations even a week and in the middle of August, and they did not give us time,” he acknowledged. In Gorgues’ opinion, “we have made the calculations with the official sources and the methodology that they themselves used and our conclusion is clear. If this methodology is not correct, it will end up being decided by a judgeâ€.
