Sánchez delays Sumar's rent decree in Spain's official gazette

The BOE delays Sumar's decree so it lasts just hours

The Spanish government has pushed back until Thursday the publication in the BOE (Spain's official gazette) of the rent decree demanded by Sumar, the one that in practice turns automatic contract extensions into indefinite rentals. The explanation being floated is not technical: on Friday Congress will reject the text for lack of support, so the measures will be in force for barely a few hours before lapsing. Two housing rules were approved at the same Council of Ministers, and each has trinc a different path. The first, agreed with the groups that prop up the government, was published on Wednesday. The second, containing the more ambitious measures demanded by the Tenants' Union, is still waiting its turn.

Two housing decrees, two speeds

The first decree is titled "Urgent measures for the protection of the social function of housing and the expansion of the affordable housing supply." It reached the Official Gazette this Wednesday without a hitch. The second contained just one thing: the automatic extension of rentals. It is the measure that, in the government's own view, would not win as much consensus among the parties that backed Sánchez's investiture —the PNV and Junts among them— and which will presumably go to a second royal decree.

What the already published housing decree includes

Four measures make up the block that did make it into the Official Gazette:

• Eviction protections extended until 2030.
• Regulation of seasonal and room rentals.
• Ban on purchases of housing by vulture funds until 2028.
• Two-year extension of existing contracts ending before December 31, 2028.

All of them carry their expiry date written into the text itself: 2028 for fund purchases and contract extensions, 2030 for evictions. The delayed decree, by contrast, lacks a majority in the lower house to go through. The government considers it, according to the published account, a ticking time bomb capable of delivering the coup de grâce to the rental market.

Why publication is being delayed until Thursday

Sources in the lower house argue that if the Congress majority rejects the decree, its measures would not come into force. Hence the delay: it avoids the rule appearing in the BOE and then lapsing with Parliament's rejection, a scenario that raises a legal certainty problem. With less than 24 hours in force there is barely any margin to file any claim in court, nor for a landlord to withdraw their rental offer before the extension becomes enforceable.

Some read all this as a showcase operation: the gesture is displayed to the partner and then left to die in the vote. The more charitable calculation points the other way, that the delay protects the tenant from a legal limbo, because a rule that is published and struck down generates more confusion than one that is never printed.

A rental market that was already broken

The most repeated diagnosis among those who trinc the market closely is that the damage is already done, regardless of what happens on Friday. They argue that since 2023 residential rentals have been steadily withdrawn: what comes onto the market is for tourists, students or by the room. Nobody in their right mind rents to families, couples or singles anymore, not even to civil servants with a steady paycheck. Meanwhile evictions continue, with a procedure that drags on for almost two years between the lawsuit, the vulnerability report to social services and the actual eviction.

Hence an uncomfortable conclusion under that reading: the best thing that could happen to avoid further damaging the market is for these decrees not to go through. Tenant protection, they argue, has translated into less supply and worse prices for those searching. How much is a rule worth that only exists for a few hours, and who does it really protect while it lives?

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