Renting a home is increasingly difficult, while the rise in mortgage prices complicates access to an apartment to own. “The offer has always been smaller [than in the purchase market], but now many owners feel insecure in the rental market and choose to sell their homes,” argues Font. The direct consequence is the crescendo imbalance between supply and demand and, with it, the requirements that tenants must meet.
A context in which the complexity of finding a home that fits your needs also increases. Added to this are other obstacles that continue this search, such as abusive entry requirements, the illicit payment of fees or the increasingly common requirement for a deposit as additional guarantee.
One of the consequences of the lack of supply is that it allows owners to impose more entry conditions and incur discrimination, points out Iñaki Unsain. The real estate personal shopper and general director of ACV Gestión Inmobiliaria considers that the new Housing law and the limits on the rental price established by the norm add uncertainty to the market. He maintains that, for example, in Barcelona city the tenants who have the least resources are the most affected. And he remembers that to the rule of allocating no more than 30% of income to rent, we must add the savings of two months of deposit and the current month. “It is an advance of three months at a time, an entry requirement that expels many from the market,” he asserts.
Arantxa Goenaga, lawyer and partner at the Círculo Legal Barcelona firm, observes how the practice of reviewing the payrolls and checking accounts of possible future tenants is becoming normal, and adds: “If before the rent for the last year was requested, now they can be requested checking accounts to corroborate that the tenant's financial situation remains the same." For the Llogaters Union, the owner's fear of future non-payments is contrasted with a possible violation of the right to privacy. Therefore, he argues that this practice falls within the scope of legality.
The union insists on the importance of carefully reading the contract before signing it and negotiating the conditions with the landlord whenever possible. The points that this document must include are the monthly rent, the duration of the contract, the person who will assume the different expenses (community, taxes, insurance) or the payment of payments in cases of breakdowns.
It must also be kept in mind that many times the clauses of a contract can be considered void or abusive. The first are those that are illegal according to the current housing law and that, therefore, are automatically invalid. The second ones are a little more complex. “When a clause with which we do not agree generates an imbalance between the obligations and rights of the parties, is not transparent enough and has been imposed from a contractual relationship between the consumer and the property, we must fight for non-inclusion in the contract and its recognition as an abusive clause,” the union comments. A fairly common case is the reservation of the right to retain the entire deposit if any of the conditions for returning the home are not met, no matter how minor, such as painting the dining room walls in another tone of white.
The fees represent that percentage of the sale or rental price that covers the real estate agency's work during the process, that is, they are the commissions received for the services provided. Before the approval of the new law, they were the responsibility of the tenants. However, now it is the owners who must take charge, since it is considered that it is their responsibility to use this service to rent the property and not the tenant's. "The problem is that many owners, together with real estate agencies, may look for new procedures to camouflage the collection of fees," explains Goenaga.
Paying the rent for the home in cash can be problematic for different reasons, among others, because the payment of the rent in cash is not declared and because the owner thus manages to avoid paying taxes or depositing the deposit with the corresponding agency. In this regard, the new law establishes that payment "will be made through electronic means," although if any of the parties lacks a bank account or access to electronic means, "it may be made in cash." “It is not well defined. Instead of using electronic means, it should clarify whether it is explicitly a transfer or not, since certain groups, older people, for example, cannot make a payment through Bizum,” says Goenaga.
For the tenant, the deposit is one of the procedures that arouses the most suspicion. In Spain, the law obliges the owner to deposit this money in a corresponding organization to prevent the landlord from spending it before the date on which the contract ends. Incasòl, the Catalan organization where the deposits are kept, can sanction the owner if he does not deposit the amount. The bond registry has an administrative nature, but is not public: only the contracting parties can access it, as well as people duly authorized by both.
When returning the deposit amount, the owner must duly indicate what expenses he or she will have to bear and duly justify them. If the tenant does not agree, he must complain directly to the owner, and in case of lack of agreement, the last option would be to go to trial. “The sofa is broken, the walls are very battered, the furniture is rusty.... There are many excuses that an owner can make to avoid the return of the deposit, which is why it is very important to take photos of the apartment before entering , and if there is any piece of furniture or appliance that we are not going to use, ask for its removal and always do so in writing to leave a record,” Goenaga emphasizes.
The search for a rental home must be accompanied by certain preventive measures to avoid major problems in the future. Ferrant Font recalls some common advice: “Do the numbers right, consider the right needs and be aware of the average prices by area, square meters of the home, maximum rental expense (which should not exceed 30% of our monthly income) and keep in mind that many times some resignation will have to be made.”
