The owners, against limiting the rent in Catalonia: "It is a populist measure that will not solve anything"

• Housing.Catalonia approves limiting the rental price with division in JxCat

The real estate sector has stormed out in the last hours to express its disagreement with the law approved on Wednesday by the Catalan Parliament to limit the price of rents and to warn of the adverse effects that, in its opinion, it will have on the operation of the rental market in Catalonia.

From large to small owners, portals and players in the sector, they have agreed to point out the inappropriateness of the standard.

The first of its kind that a Spanish community launches.

instead of giving a housing solution to the most vulnerable renters, is not going to solve anything. On the contrary, it is going to do a lot of damage to the Catalan rental market and cause effects contrary to the desired ", says

, CEO of Asval, the Association of Rental Home Owners.

According to his analysis, the experience in other European cities such as Paris or Berlin is being "manipulated", which have already launched initiatives of this type and have shown that it is not the solution.

On the contrary, Toribio points out that limiting rents by regulations will cause the opposite effects to those desired and will promote the underground economy in the rental market.

"It will reduce the supply and cause more legal uncertainty among the owners," he points out, which will slow down the decision of many landlords to put their properties on the circuit.

This is also the perception of

Director of Communication

, who considers that "limiting rental prices could further reduce the housing supply".

And this is precisely one of the main problems in the market today.

The demand for rent has increased in recent years due to the difficulties of citizens, especially the youngest, to access a home that they own.

Faced with this, the supply of available housing in Spain is scarce and, in some points such as large cities -Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, San Sebastián, among others- insufficient.

Therefore, in the opinion of the main players in the sector, the solution should be to reinforce and expand the available public housing stock and streamline private developments.

Lack of supply

"Above all, we must expand the supply of affordable housing,

the great abandoned since the 2008 crisis," said

yesterday

in a statement in which he calls it a "major error" that the Parliament has approved the law that limits the price of rents.

The Catalan collective API not only focuses on the consequences, but on the very nature of the regulation and detects a "clear unconstitutionality" of a good part of the articles, which "will create a tense environment of legal insecurity in the sector with negative effects on the supply of housing ".

Several Catalan real estate organizations have signed a joint statement in which they also denounce the "lack of dialogue" during the process of drafting and discussing the bill, "since we have not been summoned on any occasion to be able to present our vision of the problem and their solutions ", and regret that the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, refused to receive them.

"The non-existence of a public rental park is the responsibility of public administrations and not private owners. The right balance must be sought between the protection of the tenant and the legitimate defense of the interests of the owners. That is why it is essential to adopt measures that act directly against the origin of the increase in the rental price of housing, which is none other than the shortage of supply: there is not enough housing to supply the demand ", they sentence.

The "illegality" is also one of the points that are questioned by the

(ANA), whose business is more linked to small owners.

According to

, general director of the company, the regulation approved by the Catalan Parliament "is illegal and will seriously harm the rental market" in the region.

"It is contrary to a law of greater rank, such as the Urban Leasing Law, which is based on a general principle of freedom in the setting of rents and which prevents the Autonomous Communities from setting binding reference prices," he warns.

Constitutional incognito

The constitutionality of the rule is one of the questions it raises for the future, since it could end up being suspended by the Constitutional Court.

The law went ahead on Wednesday with 71 votes in favor of JxCat, ERC, the commons and the CUP, and 63 against Cs, the PSC-Units, the PP, the four PDeCAT deputies integrated into JxCat, and the two deputies Democrats integrated into ERC.

The law limits the rental price of those homes that are within an area declared as a "tense housing market", which includes municipalities that meet any of the three requirements: that they experience sustained growth clearly higher than of the average of Catalonia;

that the average burden of the rental cost on the personal or family budget exceeds 30% of the usual income, and that the price has risen five years at least three points above the CPI.

In these areas with a tense market, rental contracts may not exceed the price of the last contract or the average rental price in the same area, while new-build homes are excluded from the regulations to encourage housing construction Social.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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