Bernardos Suggests Leaving Homes Vacant Amid Penal Code Debate

Bernardos Suggests Leaving Homes Vacant Amid Penal Code Debate

A single figure summarizes the conflict: Article 281.1 of the Penal Code punishes with one to five years in prison anyone who removes essential goods from the market with the intent to alter prices or harm consumers. The suggestion by economist Gonzalo Bernardos—to leave homes vacant until legal certainty is restored—has triggered a debate on whether this recommendation fits within that incivil offense. The short answer: no. The long answer explains why half of Spain is calling their real estate agents.

What Bernardos Proposes and Why It Is Controversial

The economist, a regular media presence who owns property in Zaragoza, proposed withdrawing rental offers until the legal framework guarantees owners' rights. This is not an organized landlords' strike but an individual recommendation based, he argues, on rational calculation. The reaction was immediate. Supporters claim that demanding legal certainty is not profiteering, and that the legislator, not the landlord, is responsible for shortages. Critics view the suggestion as pressure on the market.

Article 281.1 requires a clear subjective element: intent to cause shortages, alter prices, or seriously harm consumers. Applying it to an owner deciding not to rent is, for many experts, a stretch of interpretation. The legal discussion mixes with economic reality: can an individual remove an essential good from the market if they only own one? What about ten thousand individuals acting simultaneously without coordination?

The Owner's Calculation: Losing Little vs. Losing Everything

The most repeated argument is accounting, not ideological. With a vacant flat, you lose a known amount and can sell. With a problematic rental, you lose income, utilities, taxes on uncollected rent, and legal fees; if you must sell, you do so at a discount. The asymmetry is brutal. Using a property as storage may be more profitable than renting it out with default risk, summarizing the logic applied by many participants to their own assets.

The corollary is stricter tenant selection. There is talk of requiring fixed pay slips, ten-year work histories, incomes exceeding 130% of the rent, and two guarantors meeting the same criteria. In other words, getting into Monaco’s Rose Ball might be easier than renting in Spain if the decree proceeds. According to this analysis, vulnerable profiles would be excluded from the rental market and organize into cooperatives to buy, paying installments instead of rent.

Effect on Prices: Less Supply, More Pressure

The dominant thesis is that withdrawing rental supply does not lower anything. On the contrary: if demand remains far above supply, purchase prices rise. The decree, if not repealed, would increase purchase prices because those unable to rent will try to buy. This is not a dated prediction but a direction of movement.

Some go further, arguing the rental market is segmenting into two: what those with proven solvency can afford, and what disappears entirely. Owners who cannot afford to keep flats idle will sell them. Those who can, will wait. In the worst-case scenario, almost nothing remains available for rent.

Alternative Solutions: Exchange, Stocks, and Sales

The conversation shifted to practical solutions. House exchange platforms using points, avoiding cash payments, are mentioned to bypass taxation and tourist flat regulations. Selling real estate assets and moving funds to stocks also appears. One case describes a chalet yielding €14,000 annually, with €3,000 in costs (property tax, fees, repairs) and €1,000 in taxes, replaced by a portfolio generating €30,000 pre-tax. Nearly triple the income, without tenants.

The underlying problem remains: if the State wants to solve a social emergency, the State should pay for it. Public compensation for affected owners is discussed, but its execution is doubted. They say it to deceive landlords who vote PSOE, claims one skeptical voice. Distrust in administration is the common denominator.

Who Wins and Who Loses with the Decree

The shared diagnosis is that the decree protects non-paying tenants and punishes those who pay, as available housing shrinks and solvent people are left homeless. Landlords withdraw. Compliant tenants compete for fewer units. Defaulters occupy what remains outside the system. To have tenants, you need landlords, and the current framework, according to this analysis, is expelling them.

The Penal Code discussion ultimately acts as a mirror: Article 281.1 is invoked against those removing flats, but the lingering question is whether the shortage is created by those who stop offering or by those who make offering ruinous. The answer is not in the legal text. It lies in whether the legislator is willing to bear the cost of their own legal uncertainty. Or not?