The socialist area of ​​the Government refuses to approve a state regulation of housing for tourist rental. The main government party assumes that the proliferation of this type of lease is one of the gaps that the Housing Law will face. However, the control of this type of property, generally located in the center of large cities or in places with a large influx of visitors, is a regional responsibility, and the Ministry of Transport does not have the possibility of establishing a national legal framework, explains the PSOE.
The socialist position comes to respond to a transactional amendment to the Housing Law that Podemos raised yesterday to limit the tourist accommodation places that can be offered in a stressed area to 2% of inhabitants. The movement, which caused surprise in ERC and EH Bildu because the negotiators closed the law last week, will not have any route due to the conflict of powers that it would raise. According to the Ministry of Transport, there will be no changes “to give all security and legal solvency to the law.”
The Housing Law does not provide for measures to prevent owners, trying to avoid the price regulation that some autonomous communities will impose in the stressed areas, withdrawing their properties from the residential rental market to allocate them to tourist leasing. It was one of the most intense debates in the negotiation.
In the Housing Law, it is foreseen, in the fifth additional provision, to create a “working group for the regulation of contracts for use other than housing”. But tourist rentals will be left out, they explain from the Government. It only affects the cases of room and seasonal leases.
Tourism entrepreneurs have been warning for some time that, after the pandemic and the recovery of tourism, the proliferation of this type of rental is one of the most important problems for the sector. The Exceltur employers demanded at the end of last year a specific regulation to “order the resurgence of uncontrolled growth.” The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations (Cehat) expressed itself along the same lines, warning of a possible transfer of flats from residential leases.
The Ministry of Industry, responsible for tourism, does not have a precise database on the number of tourist rental homes that exist in the country, although, during the Reyes Maroto period, an audit was carried out. Exceltur presented, for its part, in the Revitur report specific data: between 2010 and 2019 the tourist places in the twenty main cities have gone from 346,921 to 788,136. 82% of the growth is due to tourist housing.
With the housing law closed by the PSOE, the PP has on the horizon the presentation of an appeal before the Constitutional Court. “All scenarios are open,” campaign spokesman Borja Sémper said yesterday when asked if he would follow the line advanced for some autonomy, such as Madrid, if he appealed it.
The popular will vote against the norm and yesterday they focused on the compromise amendment that will be incorporated into the opinion. The spokesman indicated that it will make it difficult “to expel the squatters and the tenants who stop paying” the owners of more than five homes. The amendment prevents the eviction of vulnerable tenants without an act of conciliation. A scenario that, according to the criteria of the PP, is a “bargain” for the occupations, it will generate legal uncertainty, it will make it difficult for the owners to recover the apartment and it will foster neighborhood conflicts.
The PP recalled its line of action, based, in the words of Sémper, on guaranteeing “vacation in 24 hours, tougher penalties, giving advice to owners through the municipalities, enabling a 24-hour telephone assistance and promoting special units against illegal occupationâ€. Distinguishing, he highlighted, among the non-payment of rents or mortgages of vulnerable families.
In the plenary session on Thursday, the vote against Junts per Catalunya, which denounced invasion of powers, is also scheduled.
