The Barcelona City Council continues to fight to regulate the rental market in the Catalan capital. As mentioned above, the Plenary of the Barcelona City Council has approved declare Barcelona as a “tense housing market area” . This measure was initially approved in June and on September 16 it was finally declared by an extraordinary plenary session. This statement regulates the rental prices in the city in accordance with the Catalan income containment law for a further five years, the maximum term provided by legislation.
In accordance with the provisions of the Catalan law on urgent measures regarding income containment in housing lease contracts, the plenary initially approved declaring Barcelona a tense housing market in July, before on vacation , with the vote in favor of the municipal government groups, ERC and Junts, and against Cs, PP, BCNxCanvi and the non-attached councilor, Marilén Barceló.
Óscar Ramírez (PP) has said that intervening in the rental market instead of bringing affordable prices will create a “boomerang effect” and he believes that it will cause a drop in the rental supply, insecurity legal, black market and the reduction of the quality of the housing stock.
From Ciutadans, the rule has been labeled “absolutely populist”, in the words of Luz Guilarte, who has accused Mayor Ada Colau of not fulfilling her obligation to build public rental housing. The PP has maintained that the regulation causes the supply drop because the owners remove the flats from the market. And Barcelona pel canvi has defended that it will cause “legal insecurity and that other cities (in reference to Berlin) have repealed the regulation”.
What does it mean that Barcelona is a tense housing market area?
The reference price at the time of signing a new rental contract will be the lowest of the price of the previous contract or 95% of what is set by the reference price index of the Generalitat.
The particular characteristics of the new declaration is that it will be for a period of five years, a 5% decrease in the reference price according to the Generalitat price index, and the inclusion of homes with a useful surface area greater than 150 m2.
For more information you can visit the College of Property Managers website of Barcelona-Lleida.
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