The Permanent Committee of the Congress has given the green light this Thursday to the decree-law that collects a broad package of actions to intervene in the housing market, but has rejected the second decree, promoted by Sumar, which aimed to set the automatic renewal of rental contracts and required the landlord to compensate the tenant financially in the event of terminating the contract.
As with any decree-law, both texts had to be submitted for validation in the Lower House within a maximum period of thirty days. After the dissolution of the Cortes due to the election advance, it has been the Permanent Committee —the only body that remains in operation after the dissolution— that has taken on the voting of these rules.
The decree with general measures on housing has moved forward with the support of 35 deputies from PSOE, Sumar, ERC, PNV and Podemos (which concentrates the vote of the Mixed Group), against the rejection of the 34 representatives of PP, Vox and Junts, who in an ordinary Plenary had absolute majority. Meanwhile, in the second initiative, the vote against PP, Vox and Junts has been joined by that of the PNV, which has led to its repeal.
Ban on evictions and extraordinary extension of contracts
Among the provisions of the first decree, it includes a ban on carrying out evictions of vulnerable people without alternative housing until 2030 and sets an automatic extension of rental contracts throughout 2028.
The text also incorporates the mechanism called "Tu Casa", managed by the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), which provides loans of up to 50,000 euros for the purchase of a first home and will have a funding allocation of 10,000 million euros.
Alongside the ICO line, a social impact fund is created with 400 million euros to promote the construction and development of housing by social agents, while at the same time the conditions are tightened for the speculative acquisition of properties by "vulture" funds, expanding their definition and revising the exception regime with respect to the previous decree.
As for the second decree, it established that, once the five years of the contract’s duration were exceeded (seven if the lessor is a legal person), the rent would be automatically extended for another five years —seven in the case of companies—. If the owner chose not to renew, they had to pay the tenant compensation equivalent to a full year of rent.
Pablo Bustinduy and Isabel Rodríguez defend the texts
The Standing Committee has first taken up the decree on automatic renewal of rentals, defended by the minister of Social Rights, Consumption and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Bustinduy, and subsequently the one that brings together the broader set of measures, presented by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez.
In the first debate, Bustinduy has called for the support of the groups by underlining that the initiative could reach five million people and would involve a potential saving of up to 4,341 euros per tenant. He also pointed out that similar regulation already exists in France, Germany or Vienna (Austria), a city that the left often takes as a reference in housing policy due to its large public housing stock.
The minister appealed to the members of the Standing Committee to vote in favor of extending rental contracts so that people living on rent can keep that money, instead of it ending up in the hands of "the real estate companies that are draining the life out of them".
In the second debate, Rodríguez defended that the decree makes it possible to protect tenants and small property owners against the housing emergency while increasing the supply of affordable housing. Among the key points, she highlighted the prohibition of evictions for vulnerable people, the new contract extensions, tax deductions for renters, and bonuses of up to 100% of rents for small property owners who reduce prices.
The minister reiterated that housing "is not a commodity" and cannot be conceived as "a financial asset", but constitutes "a basic right". For this reason, she defended that expanding the public and affordable housing stock with permanent protection will prevent it from ending up in the hands of vulture funds, and she emphasized the need to introduce tools that curb speculation. "Protecting the tenant and giving security to the small property owner is not contradictory, but rather a necessity," she stressed.
Positions of the groups unchanged
Throughout the debate on both decrees, there were no shifts in direction in the political formations, which have maintained the positions they had already advanced and that were consistent with the vote they cast in the October Plenary, when the previous decree-laws were rejected.
PP, Vox and Junts have reiterated their opposition to the two texts, while PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu and Podemos —which in the Permanent Deputation channels the vote of the Mixed Group— have confirmed their support for the decree with general measures.
The PNV, whose backing proved decisive, has repeated the same criterion as in the October Plenary: it has supported the broader decree and voted against the one that set the compensation in favor of the tenant, considering that the payment of twelve monthly installments is “disproportionate and excessive”.
The Government recovers part of what was lost in the Plenary
With this outcome, the Executive manages to save at least one of the two decrees promoted after the eviction of Maricarmen, which sparked strong social outrage over the housing situation.
In the Plenary of the Congress, where PP, Vox, Junts and UPN together held an absolute majority of 178 seats, the two texts were rejected and the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, chose to bring forward the general elections to 29 November.
After the dissolution of the Cortes, the Government again approved both decrees, introducing slight changes so that they would not be identical to the previous ones, with the difference that this time the vote would not be held in the Plenary, but in the Permanent Deputation, where there were sufficient supports to validate at least the decree with the most general measures.
The vote took place, moreover, one day after the general strike for housing and just on the eve of the official start of the election campaign, which will begin at 00:00 hours on Friday, 13 November.