Tenants’ union push authorities for stronger stance on rent cap law

The tenants’ union Sindicat de Llogateres is pushing the Catalan government and Barcelona city council to take a stronger stance on the debate on a Spain-wide rent cap law. 

The entity wants the Catalan authorities to fight for regulation that would see the Spanish government “at least” control rent prices the same way that a recently-stricken Catalan law did.

Spain’s Constitutional Court annulled the vast majority of Catalonia’s rent cap law on March 10, arguing the legislation went beyond the scope of what the Catalan government’s powers should be.

The news was not welcomed by housing activists that say prices drop and contracts increased in 2021 after the law came into force. "In September 2020, we considered it a historic victory, a step forward," Enric Aragonès, housing union member, said after the news broke.

According to the union, the current text of the future Spain-wide rent cap law is insufficient, and therefore representatives met with Catalan President, Pere Aragonès, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, to ask them to help force the ruling Socialist Party to include limits on rent prices. 

Colau is linked with the junior member of the Spanish government, Podemos, while the union also pointed out that Aragonès’s party, ERC, is essential to approve the regulations. As such, union representatives hope that their inputs will be accepted by the Spanish government. 

Enric Aragonès, spokesperson for the group, said the new regulation is “urgent” because while the Catalan rent cap law was in force, a total of 160,000 rental contracts were signed in just over a year. “How many contracts are being signed now without any regulation?” he questioned. 

According to him, the regulations have been effective in lowering prices and Spanish regulation is needed to circumvent the Constitutional Court’s annulment. The current law would be "inapplicable" in Catalonia, he criticizes, adding it would have no effect on rental prices in Catalonia or any city in Spain. 

Catalan president Pere Aragonès says that this situation shows the need for the future Spanish law to return authority in regulating rents to Catalonia. 

Meanwhile, Colau has promised to play a "proactive" role in the negotiations for the amendments, as Barcelona is the city with the highest percentage of the population living on rent in all of Spain – 40% – and that every year about 50,000 contracts are signed, a third of the total in Catalonia.

Colau also pointed out that the Spanish minister responsible for housing, Raquel Sánchez, admitted that the law needed to be reformed to make it more effective in avoiding speculative rises in rents. For this reason, she is confident that the amendments presented by the entities and some parties will be approved.