With two weeks to go until the strike for housing access, the homeowners' union Som Habitatge has presented fifteen proposals to resolve the serious crisis the country is experiencing. Among others, the association, which defines itself as "the voice of the small owner", has demanded that one must own at least 100 properties to be considered a large holder.

If the owner of your apartment has more than one rented property, it is likely that you have noticed the price hike more than the tenant of a landlord who has only one property on the market. In fact, according to a study by the Esade think tank published this Thursday, the more apartments an owner accumulates, the more they increase the monthly payments.

Large housing holders are in the political and social spotlight, in the face of the serious housing crisis suffering in Catalonia (and the rest of Europe). The Government has the decree to create the Registry of large holders in the oven, which Parliament approved creating in March 2022. According to the draft, which is still pending final approval, and to which ARA has had access, the Housing Agency wants to be able to publish on its website the corporate name – the equivalent of the name – and the NIF (tax identification number) of legal entities that are considered large holders.

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).

In the last week of October, the Government and the Commons unblocked the implementation of the registry of large property owners, a commitment signed in the spring during negotiations for supplementary budget allocations. All legal entities and individuals with five or more properties will have to register: those who fail to do so will face fines of between €9,000 and €90,000, as stipulated by the housing law. The expectation was that the registry –which already existed in the previous legislature and which the Government reactivated in February– was to be approved in November. With the end of the year just around the corner, this has not yet happened, and, moreover, the executive has had to make last-minute changes to the draft decree that creates it. This was due to a report from the Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT) that warns of the limits that the right to privacy of large property owners imposes on the registry.

It was a commitment made by Salvador Isla's government, agreed upon with the Comuneros (Commons). And this weekend it came into effect: the property transfer tax (ITPi AJD), which taxes second-hand property and real estate transactions, increases for properties over €600,000 and doubles, up to 20%, for purchases of buildings and from large owners, such as funds or large real estate companies. The Catalan law defines large owners as those with more than 10 properties or a built-up area of more than 1,500 square meters, but it is reduced for more than five properties in areas declared under pressure by the Generalitat (Catalan government), that is, where prices are regulated. There are 271 municipalities in Catalonia with this regulation, including Barcelona. These increases were included in a decree from last March, ratified in May, and which was scheduled to come into effect within three months, that is, as of last Friday, June 27.