The political upheaval caused by the regional elections of the past 28-M leaves it up in the air that the Housing law, in force only since May 26, the day after it was published in the BOE, will be fully deployed. Two of its most controversial aspects, income control and the qualification of owners of more than five homes as large tenants, which depend on the autonomous communities, will predictably only come to be applied in the large Catalan capitals, especially Barcelona, ​​and Pamplona.
“All the deployment of the law, including the application of tense areas, and which was intended to intervene and limit rental incomes, will not have a real effect on the vast majority of Spain”, assured José Ramón Zurdo, general manager of the Agencia Negociadora del Alquiler.
After the elections, autonomous governments of the PP are expected in eleven autonomous communities and this party has already announced that it would not apply the new rule to the communities where it governed.
In Castilla-La Mancha, where the PSOE has revalidated the majority, its executive already announced that it would not apply because it was considered counterproductive and it was more important to promote housing development. In Oviedo, although Asturias will continue to have a socialist government, rents have barely risen in recent years, so the city would not be affected.
In the Canary Islands, the support of the PP can be given by the Government to Coalició Canària, which did not support the law in Congress and announced its intention to appeal it. In the Basque Country, the PNB does not support the law either, and has also announced that it will appeal against it for invasion of powers, but the law could end up being applied if in the next regional elections, in 2024, Bildu, a of the biggest promoters of the rule together with ERC and Podemos.
“The electoral results will accentuate the injustice that we have a differential rental market in Catalonia, and this implies a distortion to attract investments and affects business decisions”, lamented Carles Sala, spokesperson of the API collective in Catalonia. “In the end it will turn out that the central government has approved a law that will be practically only for Catalonia”, emphasized Sala, since the other major capital affected, Pamplona, ​​in which the socialist party with EH-Bildu and Geroa will retain the government Yes, it has a real estate market with much lower activity.
José Ramón also predicted a displacement of “investment by developers and investors” to areas that do not apply this law and the creation of “a two-speed Spain”.
The same call for general elections will paralyze key aspects of the implementation of the law, such as the preparation of the new rent reference index, entrusted to the INE; the creation of the future Housing Advisory Council, which was to include ministries and professional, business and social entities; or the creation of the working group that had to prepare a proposal to regulate seasonal rentals within six months.
The call for elections will also predictably delay the declaration of tense areas that the Generalitat requested on Friday before the elections and which must be approved by the Executive. “We hope that a government in office will not make a decision of this type,” said Sala, who recalled that the procedures provided for by law to approve the zones, including a public information procedure, are unlikely to be complete before 23-J.
The new law could even be repealed if the Popular Party prevails in the July 23 elections, which this week brought to Congress a proposal to repeal the Housing law because it considers that it includes measures “interventionist and contrary to individual freedom” and that will have the opposite effects he is looking for, because the supply of flats will be reduced.
