Spain’s Congress Committee Backs Housing Decree 35 Votes to 34
A Congress committee backed one housing decree 35 to 34. It has applied since Oct. 8 and covers rent caps, evictions and tourist flats.
The Diputació Permanent, the committee that acts for the Congrés (Spain’s lower house) while parliament is dissolved, validated one of two housing decrees on Thursday by 35 votes to 34, according to go.eln.cat. The decree has been in force since Oct. 8. The second decree, on automatic extensions of rental contracts, fell and never applied: it was due to take effect on Sunday.
Pedro Sánchez’s government approved both decrees the day after it called the election, and the vote came the day after a general strike and the day before the campaign opens.
What the validated decree does
- It halts until 2030 the evictions of vulnerable people who have nowhere to go.
- Until the same year, vulture funds (investment funds that buy distressed property) and large property owners cannot buy homes below 70% of the market price.
- Tenants who are up to date with payments can ask for up to two years more on a contract that ends before 2029.
- Until the end of 2027, if landlord and tenant do not agree, the annual rent rise cannot exceed 2%.
The text also regulates seasonal rentals and rentals by the room, lowers taxes for landlords who cut their prices, adds a deduction for tenants with lower incomes and raises taxes on tourist flats. It creates interest-free loans to buy a first home.
Why the result differs from Oct. 2
When the Cortes are dissolved, the Diputació Permanent stands in for the chamber. It has 69 seats, against 350 in the full Congress. On Oct. 2 the full chamber threw out both earlier texts after Junts, PP and Vox voted together.
This time PSOE, Sumar, Podemos, ERC, Bildu, BNG and PNB gave the decree 35 votes, against 34 from Junts, PP and Vox. The seats in the committee are 27 for PP, 24 for PSOE, six each for Vox and Sumar, and one each for ERC, Junts, Bildu, PNB and the Mixed Group, plus the speaker, the Socialist Francina Armengol.
PNB switched sides on the second decree and helped bring it down. Its spokeswoman, Maribel Vaquero, said the party opposed indefinite contracts because they would reduce the supply of homes. Junts, which negotiated the first decree with the PSOE, voted against both texts on Oct. 2 because, in its view, they were badly drafted, created uncertainty and did not do enough against vulture funds.
Reactions in the chamber
Social Rights minister Pablo Bustinduy said Wednesday’s strike had stopped the country and accused the right of defending employers and vulture funds. Housing minister Isabel Rodríguez asked why the PP and Vox push for building homes when they do not do so in the regions they govern. Junts deputy Josep Maria Cruset called the decrees patches. PP deputy Sergio Sayas called approval in the committee instead of the full chamber a fraud on democracy.
ERC’s Gabriel Rufián and Cruset also traded personal insults from the floor.
The strike behind the date
The vote followed the first joint general strike by the CCOO and UGT unions since 2012, and the first under Sánchez’s governments. The CEOE employers’ group put turnout below 5%. The unions gave no overall figure and called the day a success. According to Red Eléctrica, electricity consumption fell 3.9% against the forecast.
In Madrid, police and the central government’s delegation gave sharply different crowd counts, with the delegation’s the higher. In Barcelona, the Guàrdia Urbana (the city police) gave its own count. At least 75 people were arrested across Spain, 52 of them in Barcelona, where there were serious disturbances. Front Ampli, Podemos and ERC are demanding the resignation of Interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska over police charges. He has ordered investigations into police conduct and ruled out tear gas at future demonstrations.
What this means for tenants and owners
The rent cap, the eviction freeze and the tourist-flat tax changes stay in force. Their future now sits in the election campaign, which starts at midnight. PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said on Antena 3’s El Hormiguero that he will repeal the decree if he reaches the Moncloa (the prime minister’s office). He also wants to repeal the 2023 housing law and replace it with a plan to build a million homes.
Source: go.eln.cat
