Far-left Francoism
Just two years after the Second World War, in June 1947, Evita Perón, first lady of the then-opulent Argentine Republic, visited one of the most internationally isolated countries: Franco's Spain. Peronism was perhaps the most perfect form of populism; the magnetic personality of General Perón's wife took care of the rest. Upon landing in Madrid, she declared her intention to have direct contact with the local descamisados (the Argentine middle class, on the other hand, often used the racist term cabecitas negras). She was able to witness the misery of the enormous shantytowns, but she also praised the housing policy that the dictatorship was implementing.
In recent weeks there has been much talk about the "old rent" (renda antiga). What was it, really? It was not a specific law but the legal framework created by the successive Urban Leasing Acts (LAU) approved during the Franco regime, especially those of 1946 and 1964. They were born in a context of severe housing shortages after the Civil War, and their goal was to protect tenants from speculation and price hikes. Their central element was the mandatory extension of contracts. When the agreed term ended, the landlord could not freely recover the property as long as the tenant fulfilled their obligations. In parallel, rents were subject to considerable limitations and many rents remained almost frozen for decades. The legislation also allowed, in some circumstances, the subrogation of relatives, a fact that further extended the duration of the contracts. Recently, we have even seen a case widely amplified in the media that has ended up precipitating a call for elections.
The system provided residential stability to millions of families and prevented evictions in an era marked by the migratory flow from the countryside to the city and, therefore, by the objective lack of housing. "Not a Spaniard without bread, nor a home without a fire", the regime would repeat. All of this generated significant dysfunctions. Many landlords obtained negligible returns and often stopped allocating resources to the maintenance of the properties, which contributed to the degradation of the housing stock and, above all, reduced the incentives to offer new apartments for rent. Starting in 1985, with the so-called Boyer decree sponsored by the PSOE, the forced extension for new contracts was eliminated, although existing ones remained protected. Later on, the 1994 Urban Leasing Act maintained a transitional regime for old contracts and progressively limited subrogations, thus initiating the process of extinction for the majority of old-rent leases.
Sometimes, the various urban lease laws of the Franco regime also adopted measures aimed at preventing dwellings from remaining empty. The need to house an urban population that was growing exponentially led the State to consider that real estate property should have a social function (in the sense that the term was given by Auxilio Social, for example). Within this framework, various provisions allowed for intervention in unoccupied dwellings and, in special circumstances, the imposition of their use or the promotion of their leasing. This, of course, did not equate to a general authorization of illegal occupation, as the term is understood today. It was not a matter of any person being able to enter an empty dwelling and acquire any automatic right to it, but rather regulated interventions within a public policy of housing market control in a paternalistic key —of social assistance.
The Francoist housing policy combined two ideas that are not always easy to link: the staunch defense of private property and strong state intervention in the real estate market (let us remember the metal plaques with the Falange symbol on the tens of thousands of protected apartment blocks). The legal protection for tenants, the freezing of rents, and the possibility of family subrogation reflected a paternalistic and almost condescending conception of a real problem, that of housing. Obviously, some developers went their own way, and certain town planning departments in towns and cities became true mafia-like structures. In any case, the successive LAU between 1946 and 1964 were what they were. That they are now being reclaimed in the squares with different phraseology painfully renews my skepticism about the emancipatory potential of collective memory.
