The Government saves the housing decree and will regulate seasonal rentals

BarcelonaHours before the vote in the Parliamentary plenary session, Salvador Illa avoids a major defeat and saves the decree of urgent housing measures. ERC, Comuns, and the CUP will ultimately vote on the law in exchange for the executive introducing regulations on seasonal rentals. The Republicans had already given the green light. Yeah On Monday, the government still needed at least six votes to prevent the decree from being overturned. The Commons and the CUP also voted -who has lifted the veto in the PSC- They have finally reached an agreement with the Department of Territory in exchange for, among other things, setting a price cap for housing that is not for "recreational, tourist, or seasonal uses," but also for protecting social housing in areas under pressure.

The decree that the Catalan government presented to Wednesday's plenary session included measures to expedite construction, but ERC, Comuns, and also the CUP warned the executive that if it did not take advantage of the regulation to introduce measures to regulate seasonal rentals, it would not have their support. Initially, the executive agreed to the groups' request to process it as a bill and, in this way, introduce the groups' demands. "We have reached a maximum agreement," celebrated the Comuns spokesperson, David Cid. "Seasonal rentals are where ERC left off a year ago," added Ester Capella, spokesperson for the Republicans in Parliament, referring to a measure taken by Pere Aragonès' government that couldn't be implemented. Laure Vega, of the CUP (Union of Unity), explained why they entered into these negotiations: "It's because there was strength in the streets, not because of arithmetic logic." In fact, the three groups defended the pressure exerted by the Tenants' Union. For the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), spokesperson Ferran Pedret pledged to "comply" with the agreement.

Thus, the three-party agreement reached by the Catalan government to close the loophole through which property owners were exploiting the price cap is similar to the decree already drafted by Pere Aragonès's administration. At that time, The Parliament overturned the regulation with the votes of Junts and the PSC, who abstained because they believed the issue should be addressed at the national level. The formula was for these homes to also be subject to the price cap through the delimitation of their uses. Now, city councils will also have the power to decide whether to have seasonal rental homes in their municipalities. The agreement also includes the regulation of room rentals and establishes that the "sum of the rents" for each room cannot "exceed the maximum rent applicable to the unitary rental of the home," that is, the total price of the apartment located in a stressed area.

Regarding social housing, Comuns and the CUP (Cup) called for their protection to prevent 36,000 homes that are about to be transferred to the open market from losing this status in stressed market areas. In this regard, the agreement entails establishing an extension until at least 2027. The anti-capitalists also demanded the establishment of a body of inspectors to sanction violators of the housing law, and the law defines their powers and how they would act. "They will have the authority to verify contractual compliance, conduct periodic and ad hoc inspections, both documentary and in-person, detect fraud or abusive clauses, and prepare reports proposing corrective or punitive measures." Furthermore, the Comuns (Comuns) have also agreed with the executive to expand the registry of large property owners to include individuals (until now, only legal entities were required to do so).

Approved before summer

Another key point is the timeline: the Comuns party had requested a timeline for processing the bill. As Cid explained, the agreement requires the bill to be approved in Parliament before the end of the session, that is, before July. The Comuns party doesn't want a repeat of what happened in the Congress of Deputies. There, the PSOE agreed to process the proposal promoted by the Renters' Union, but the text has been stuck in committee for months. According to Sumar, this is because the PSOE is blocking the groups' partial amendments.

Junts (Junts), which also presented a bill regulating seasonal rentals in the plenary session this week, has not yet announced its voting intention on the decree. However, its proposal has been fully amended by Comuns (Comuns), Esquerra (Equerra), and the CUP (Cup), because it limits the application of the rent cap—with the possibility of increasing the price by an additional 20%—to large tenants provided the contract is for more than twelve months. Everything indicates that the Socialists, in order to facilitate the ongoing negotiations on the decree, will not vote in favor either. In a press conference, Junts spokesperson Mònica Sales criticized Salvador Illa's administration for attempting to govern "by decree" and, in her opinion, turning its back on the affected sectors.

On the other hand, the government is heading into this week's plenary session feeling strained after withdrawing the decree on campsites in flood-prone areas, which it withheld due to the sector's anger and lack of support. The chamber will still vote on another government decree this Wednesday, the one on public works, which yes, a priori, the votes guaranteed to move forward.