Congress has rejected the two housing decrees of the Spanish government. With one, the possibility of implementing so-called indefinite rental contracts falls through: the automatic extensions of contracts are lost, which in some cases would have been accompanied by compensation for tenants –if the law is not complied with–. With the other decree, a battery of measures falls, many of which are social, also regarding housing. It is these measures that have alerted movements for the right to housing. Among other things, the moratorium on certain evictions of vulnerable families disappears.

This morning, Junts per Catalunya decided to launch a rocket into the sky, a rocket that can be seen from afar and indicates to everyone, for when another electoral cycle comes, that it is Junts and not Aliança that is the only alternative to the PSC-Esquerra-Comuns investiture and budget bloc. And that is why the president of the Junts group, Mònica Sales, has announced an action that had never been seen before: she wants Parliament to vote on the censure of President Salvador Illa: “You, President, are the worst president modern Catalonia has had (...) That is why I announce to you that today the Junts parliamentary group will present a motion to censure you as president of the Generalitat”

The Spanish government is optimistic, but the fact is that, 48 hours before the vote on the housing decrees in Congress, they still do not have guaranteed support. Neither for the first decree-law, with a broad battery of measures such as the suspension of evictions and tax incentives –already published in the BOE–, nor for the second, which automatically extends rental contracts, which will be officially published this Thursday. For the moment, the Spanish government only counts on the affirmative vote of EH Bildu and Esquerra, as announced by its president, Oriol Junqueras, although the spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, has said that they will look at it down to the "last comma". Meanwhile, Junts, Podemos and the PNV maintain the uncertainty. In fact, it is with these two parties that the Spanish government has to perform the most juggling acts to satisfy their demands, which are very often contradictory. In parallel, the Tenants' Union has demanded that the groups validate both decrees.

The final texts of the two housing decrees approved by the Spanish government this Tuesday have several key points with some essential measures. The first decree-law has already been published in the BOE and the second decree will not be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) until this Thursday.

The streets are also applying pressure just hours before Pedro Sánchez's government brings the new housing decree-law to the Council of Ministers. Also in Barcelona, where this Monday the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, held various events and ended the day at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya at the awards ceremony for La Vanguardia. 2,000 people according to the Guàrdia Urbana and 20,000 according to the organizers gathered on Avinguda Diagonal to demand that the new decree include, among other things, the indefinite extension of rental contracts and the suspension of evictions.

Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid; Olga, the 54-year-old woman from l'Hospitalet who committed suicide after being evicted... The list is terribly long. Although the total number of judicial evictions is lower than it was a few years ago, it remains a problem, a scourge. And what is most serious is that when a measure has been attempted to be applied, even if temporary –such as the decree to prevent the eviction of vulnerable people–, a group of parties, such as the PP, Vox and Junts, opposed it.

The Generalitat has determined that there are 118 municipalities that must continue to be included in the stressed residential market area (ZMRT), a classification that establishes, among other things, where rent caps apply. However, according to the Chamber of Urban Property of Barcelona, "only" in 33 of these towns do families have to dedicate more than 30% of their income to paying rent and utilities.

In Santiago de Compostela, rents have risen by 40.26% in five years: they have gone from an average of €444 per month in 2019 to €623 in 2024. Although the prices are far from what Barcelonians pay –an average of €1,137, according to the Generalitat–, Santiago meets the conditions established in the state housing law to be considered a Stressed Residential Market Area (ZMRT), the umbrella term that allows rent caps to be set.

Updates to the list of Catalan municipalities that meet the conditions for applying the rent price cap. The Generalitat has reviewed the declaration of municipalities considered a tense residential market area and has incorporated and excluded several towns: after conducting a study on the housing situation, the Government proposes that 302 municipalities have official recognition that their housing market is tense.

New data on the impact of rent caps. The average price of new rental contracts has fallen by 1.28% in municipalities declared as rent-controlled areas —where the administration can apply rent containment— compared to when the measure began to be applied in March 2024, while in the rest of Catalonia prices have risen by 9.53%. This is data published by the Generalitat this Monday based on the deposits of new rental contracts made to Incasòl during the first quarter of 2026.

More than three years after the state housing law came into force, the Generalitat has fined three large holders for the first time – meaning owners of more than five homes each – for non-compliance with the regulations, as reported by the Efe agency this Friday. In response to questions from ARA, the Department of Territory and Housing has not specified what type of non-compliance it is (whether it is, for example, for violating the rent cap).

A few days ago, the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá, warned that housing is a true national emergency. He is not wrong. This problem, which is a growing concern for citizens, has become the main source of growth in social inequality. Whichever data you look at, the diagnosis is always the same: there is more demand than supply, expensive and practically inaccessible for a large part of the population. And of the supply that exists, some is in the hands of non-residents or are apartments used for tourist rentals. In total, there are about 900,000 across the country, according to data from the Bank of Spain.

The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda has set itself the goal of ending abusive practices in rental contracts. Now, in addition to pursuing large real estate companies –These clauses are those that have been declared judicially or legally abusive and that form part of the complaints usually filed by tenants.

The Supreme Court partially rules in favor of those autonomous communities that filed an appeal against the single registration of short-term housing by the Spanish government, as they believed it encroached on regional competencies. In a ruling published this Thursday, and in response to an appeal filed by the Generalitat Valenciana (Andalusia also filed one), the high court annuls the measure because it considers that the State does not have the authority to create such a tool.

Movements between Junts and the Spanish government. The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, was open this Tuesday to approving the tax incentives that Junts is asking for in the housing portfolio: "It is an opportunity that we should take advantage of," she stated in an interview with ACN. The PSOE has tried to convey that the measures of Carles Puigdemont's party can go ahead, and the Junts members also note that, now yes, things can go differently than the last two times the issue has been voted on in Congress. Thus, according to Junts sources consulted, the party accepts the challenge and shows its willingness to approve the extension of rents, in parallel to the executive also promoting a decree with tax deductions for mortgages and rents. The Junts members would accept them being presented in two separate decrees, as long as both end up passing.

A good book on housing is by Javier Gil, Generación inquilina, published by Capitán Swing. It is because it is written in plain language and grounds some of the forecasts that Saskia Sassen and Richard Sennett had made in the case of post-bubble Spain. The author explains that the contradictions in housing matters in the Western world begin with the neoliberal policies of dispossession of the working class, with a battery of decisions that favored rampant speculation and the preference for the accumulation of wealth, which reversed the trend of stable rents towards the purchase of housing for investment. He connects it with the well-known theses of Thomas Piketty: when housing is an investment good, it becomes inaccessible to the majority and patrimonial income grows above labor income.However, in addition, Gil quantifies the magnitude of the tragedy in Spain: after 2007, investment funds such as Blackstone, Lone Star, Oaktree, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs or Cerberus bought hundreds of thousands of homes from Spanish banks. Blackstone, Cerberus and Lone Star alone acquired 450,000 homes in Spain in a few operations. The giant Blackstone has bought large volumes of apartments in Spain, while in the rest of the world it has more diversified assets. This deserves a study, because, simultaneously, many local developers have been lost.Meanwhile, the State allocated 72 billion to the bailout of banks, and 51 billion for the creation of Sareb. Gil asks an important question: what would have happened if the largest mobilization of public funds in history had been used to buy the homes obtained through evictions?

The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda sent a letter this Monday to large real estate companies and investment funds to inform them that the contracts of their tenants that expire between March 22, 2026, and December 22, 2027, must be extended as long as they request it. The text sent by the government was addressed to thirteen large holders who concentrate more than 100,000 homes throughout Spain, as reported by the ministry led by Pablo Bustinduy. Thus, the letter reminds these companies that the extension of rental contracts will be mandatory once the tenant requests it, according to the recent royal decree-law approved by the Council of Ministers, which currently does not have sufficient parliamentary majority to be validated in Congress the recent royal decree-law approved by the Council of Ministers and which for the moment does not have a sufficient parliamentary majority to be validated in Congress.

The countdown to the vote on the decree with housing measures approved by the Spanish government to face the economic impact of the war in the Middle East has triggered a call from social groups and left-wing parties to tenants to demand "now" the extraordinary extension of up to two years of the terms and conditions of the contract in case it ends before December 31, 2027. This is one of the flagship measures of the decree which, pending the result of the vote in Congress, is in force (the temporal limit for it to be voted on is 30 business days from its publication in the "Official State Gazette).

We read in the ARA What are the Spanish government's measures to stop the rise in oil prices, which is causing everything else to go up, with or without cause? It's obvious that the barrels of oil we're consuming today were in the warehouses of the world's powerful elite, and that they raised the price to keep things moving. And it's obvious that the vegetables from overseas that you consume (I avoid them) arrived by plane and ship months ago, and that the cold storage facilities where they were kept months ago were also powered by electricity that hadn't yet become so expensive, triggering this domino effect we half-concocted. The government's measures are to lower the VAT on fuel, gas, and electricity. Amid the usual tug-of-war between parties (now I'm asking for more, so it looks like I'm putting pressure on you, now I can't grant you this so I don't look like a pushover), Sumar has managed to include, for now, "the automatic extension of rent."

The Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and Agenda 2030 has launched an investigation to remove rental listings in designated high-demand areas that violate current consumer protection regulations, the ministry announced in a statement on Friday. "If we can prove the existence of deceptive or unfair practices, the ministry will act decisively," warned Social Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy (Sumar) at a press conference. Bustinduy declined to name the real estate portals under investigation but indicated they are "the largest." The targeted listings on major real estate portals will be those offering rental apartments at prices higher than those set by law for large landlords, or those that fail to include the price of the last lease agreement offered for the property, if the owners are private individuals, as required by law. In this regard, Bustinduy has once again demanded that the PP apply state regulations to the regions and cities it governs, which would entail the delimitation of high-demand areas. These advertisements, according to the ministry, could be considered violations of consumer regulations as "unfair and misleading practices" and, therefore, carry penalties. The Customer Service Law, which came into effect on December 27, requires real estate portals to publish information in online advertisements for properties located in high-demand areas that allows consumers to understand the parameters used to justify the asking price in accordance with these regulations. These parameters include the price of the last rental agreement under which the property was offered and the applicable rent index for large landlords. The Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gambling, Andrés Barragán, recently informed various real estate portals and associations by letter of the legislative changes approved in this law and their responsibilities as intermediaries between landlords and tenants.