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.