Sumar demands regulation of room rentals

Sumar demands regulation of room rentals and airtight contracts

A room rental agreed verbally, with no written contract. That is the model the junior partner in Spain's coalition government wants to bury. The Ley 12/2023, de 24 de mayo, por el derecho a la vivienda (Spain's housing rights law) left room rentals outside its scope, and Sumar argues that this loophole has become one of the main gateways for speculation and abuse in the rental market. Including it in the new text would extend to that category a protection framework it currently lacks.

What would regulating room rentals change?

Renting a room is not the same as renting a flat, yet the law treated it as though it were nothing. The full home was covered by the state law; the single room was not. That asymmetry, according to Sumar, turns room rentals into one of the main gateways for speculation and abuse. Putting rooms under the same umbrella means extending to them the rules on written contracts, rent reviews and exit conditions that already apply to an entire home. In practice, each room would become a documented tenancy, not a verbal agreement.

The two demands Sumar calls non-negotiable

The party has two conditions on the table for its support: automatic renewal of rental contracts and regulation of room rentals. The first targets a scenario familiar to anyone who has rented: a contract expires, a landlord refuses to renew and a tenant hunts for a flat against the clock. The second takes aim at the most opaque segment of the market. Neither is settled: as of this discussion, both are part of the negotiations over the text, not a signed agreement.

The landlord's maths: 4% returns and costs on top

A participant in the debate who defends property as an investment lays out his maths: 4% annual returns, open-ended contracts, rent increases below CPI and an obligation to compensate the tenant even if the landlord needs the flat for himself. On top of that, unpaid-rent insurance, maintenance, cleaning and disinfection when the tenant leaves. With that picture, he argues, property investment no longer pays and he laughs at those who defended it.

Approved, hot air or regional jurisdiction?

Yolanda Díaz has described the approved decrees as the biggest housing advance in a decade. Against that narrative, some dismiss the matter with one word: hot air. They argue the text will fail in Congress and that, at best, no one will apply it, because enforcement depends on the autonomous communities (Spain's regional governments). The most cynical reading adds that a parliamentary defeat suits the government: it lets it pose as a victim before the next election. Some also demand that the regulation cover short-term rentals and tourist flats, with a minimum VAT of 21%. Unless that cash cow is touched, they say, no reform is worth anything.

With room rentals outside the law, the question is no longer whether they will be regulated, but who pays for the gap while that is decided. The detail: the segment the law left out is precisely the one now entering the negotiation.