Next week, the Central Government will activate the work to create a regulation of seasonal rentals, as La Vanguardia has learned, to prevent traps by owners who try to circumvent the new state housing law. Temporary rental contracts are reserved, in principle, for students and temporary displaced workers, such as digital nomads. But, since they have fewer requirements than those affecting permanent leases, they are being used by more and more tenants to avoid the rule, as real estate portals certify. The Executive assumes the problem and next week will launch a specific working group to try to solve it.
The Urban Leasing Law (LAU) states in its article 3 that the seasonal rental regulates the leasing of properties for a certain period of time "for an industrial, commercial, artisanal, professional, recreational, welfare, cultural or teacher". In other words, they are contracts linked to a specific activity designed mainly for university students or very specific workers, but not for renting a property for regular use. The Housing law did not go into this aspect.
The problem that the Central Government has detected is that this modality is restricting the offer of traditional rent, mainly in the so-called tense areas, which correspond, in general, to the central cores of the country's big cities. Since the entry into force of the first state housing regulations, seasonal rentals have grown by 40% in the last year and at the end of September they already reached 10% of the total, explains the Idealista portal. On the other hand, offers for permanent rental housing have fallen by 12% in year-on-year terms.
The situation is particularly worrying in Barcelona and Sant Sebastià, where at the moment one in three flats offered for rent are seasonal, according to Idealista. In Valencia they reach 13% and in Madrid, 11%. The problem is widespread in large cities, as the supply of traditional or long-term leases has fallen. "An increasing number choose to switch to seasonal leases which, although they have clear limitations, offer the owner a less rigid and perfectly legal environment", indicates the real estate portal. In the last quarter alone, regular rents have fallen by 4% in Barcelona and by 3% in Madrid.
In order to try to advance the regulation of seasonal contracts, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda has formed a specific working group that will hold its first meeting on Friday 22. It was one of the obligations contemplated in the fifth additional provision of the Housing law, which the department led by Isabel Rodríguez now enforces. The rule included a period of six months for the implementation of this group, but the Government, in office since July, did not comply with the requirement.
The working group on seasonal rentals will be coordinated by the Ministry of Housing. The Ministries of Economy and Presidency, and the General Secretary of Economic Affairs of Moncloa, on behalf of the State Government, will participate. Representatives of the Council of Associations of Estate Administrators, the General Council of Associations of Real Estate Agents, the employers' association CEOE, and the CC.OO unions will also be present. and UGT, and of the tenants' central office, as well as of the Confederation of Chambers of Urban Property and Associations of Owners of Urban Estates. It is not, in principle, planned for Sumar to participate, despite the fact that the Ministry of Social Rights was a co-proposer of the Housing law.
The aim of this working group will be to establish a differentiation between traditional housing lease contracts and seasonal ones because they are two “totally different” contractual modalities, Government sources explain. They remember that regular rentals include a series of regulatory elements that protect access to housing more intensively than in seasonal rentals. For example, a permanent rental contract offers stability in the contractual relationship through a system of mandatory and tacit extensions, limits the requirement of additional guarantees to the bond or frees the lessor from the costs of real estate management and formalization of the contract, among other elements.
The Ministry of Housing, with the rest of the members of the working group, also plans to address the problems with room rental contracts, a modality used especially by foreign citizens who arrive in Spain, according to sources in the sector, of all ages.
