The latest Housing Law, in force since May 26, 2023, empowers the autonomous communities to declare as "stressed residential market areas" those municipalities, cities or territorial areas "in which there is a special supply risk insufficient housing for the population”.
Check on the map of the real estate platform Housfy if you live in a (possible) area with rent stress, although it will depend on who governs your region if in the end these measures influence you or are anecdotal when renting a flat.
The declaration of stressed areas will serve to guide a large part of the housing measures of the new Law 12/2023 for the right to housing, whose objective is to contain prices and increase the supply of affordable rental apartments.
This decision will fall on the autonomies, who may declare as stressed areas those that meet at least one of these two requirements:
A study by Atlas Real Estate Analytics (Fragua), which has analyzed data from more than 11,000 postal codes in Spain, concludes that at least 2,298 areas of the country meet one or two of the requirements to be considered stressed according to the new Housing Law of 2023.
The province of Barcelona has a total of 198 stressed areas, according to this report. It is followed by Madrid (179 areas), the Balearic Islands (138), Valencia (116) and Malaga (111).
In the following interactive map, created by Housfy with data from Fragua, the towns where, at least, a postal code meets one or two of the requirements to be considered a stressed area for rent in 2023 are colored:
With the intention of "freezing" the rental price, the new Housing Law allows the tenant to request extraordinary extensions that will be held in annual installments for a period of 3 years and with the same conditions, if the property is in an area declared stressed .
The landlord must accept, unless both parties reach another agreement or the owner claims the home for himself or a first-degree relative, with the conditions set forth in the Urban Leasing Law (LAU).
In addition, the new Law limits the increase in rents in new contracts for those areas declared to be in a stressed residential market.
The rental price of the new contract must be the same as that of the previous rental (in force for the last 5 years), after applying the annual update clause of the rents that the previous contract already had. Nor may new expenses be charged (such as those of the community or the IBI) that were not included in the previous contract.
The owner may, however, raise the rent by up to 10% (on the price of the last rental contract) if he has carried out rehabilitation or improvement works, accessibility works, or that involve energy savings in the dwelling during the previous two years. accredited, or when a contract is signed for a period of 10 years.
The Law also gives the autonomous communities the possibility of changing the definition of a large fork in their stressed areas, lowering the threshold from 10 to up to 5 properties. Therefore, a large fork would become one that owned 5 properties.
Large landlords in stressed areas will not be able to raise the rent in the new contracts either, although for this case a system of state reference price indices will be used that is yet to be created. Thus, these contracts will be limited whether there was a rental in the last 5 years or not.
The Housing Law modifies, among others, the Personal Income Tax Law and reformulates the bonuses that owners with rented flats who cooperate with the Government's mission will be able to access.
An owner can access a 90% discount if he formalizes a new rental contract with a 5% reduction in the price compared to the last rent, if the property is located in a residential market area under stress according to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda.
The bonus will be 70% if the owner rents a home for the first time, in a stressed area, to a tenant between 18 and 35 years of age.
Despite the commotion, the decision to declare or not their municipalities as areas of stressed residential market falls on each autonomy. It does not matter, therefore, if your municipality meets the requirements as shown on the map: these measures will not be applied if the Administration of your region does not authorize it.
Catalonia, for example, tried to limit and freeze the rental price in 61 municipalities that it considered to have a stressed residential market, with Law 11/2020 for the regulation of the rental price. The Constitutional Court annulled it some time later, considering that it exceeded the powers of the Parliament of Catalonia.
It would be expected, therefore, that the Parliament would try its luck again with its norm now that it does have the powers, while the popular Government of the Community of Madrid would be far from compromising.
