Comunes agrees with the Government to extend rental assistance to rents up to 36,000 euros

BarcelonaA new step forward towards a budget agreement between Comuns and the Catalan Government. Jéssica Albiach's party has agreed with the executive to expand housing rental assistance, as has been reported The morning of Catalunya Ràdio And ARA has been able to confirm this. The agreement includes increasing the family income limit for accessing the benefit to €36,279, which is currently €25,200. However, "prioritization criteria will be established for families that allocate more than 30% of their household income to rent," according to Comuns.

The measure entails an additional €106 million for these subsidies, increasing the total allocation to €303 million. According to calculations by Comuns, this would reach an additional 49,500 families and 25% of tenant families over the next two years.

The agreement, which Albiach will detail further at a press conference at 11 a.m., comes after the president announced on Tuesday night that he had reached a consensus with the government. Salvador Illa once again placed housing as the "most important" issue and commit to finding "legally sound" proposals to address speculative housing purchases, the "essential" condition set by Comuns for reaching a budget agreement and the main stumbling block in negotiations so far.

The experts hired by the Government have described legal and "constitutional" to ban speculative purchases housing through urban planning legislation, the exclusive competence of the Generalitat, if it is done temporarily and in stressed areas.