Tenant Union's Ultimatum: Indefinite Leases or Sol Square?

Tenant Union: Indefinite Contracts or We Stay in Sol

What happens when a landlord can never get their property back? The Tenant Union believes it knows: that's exactly what they're asking for. The organization is maintaining its protest camp in Puerta del Sol and has conditioned its departure on Pedro Sánchez's government imposing indefinite contracts for residential rentals. “Indefinite contracts, we can’t put it any clearer. So they can’t kick us out,” explained spokesperson Alicia del Río. Her colleague Valeria Racu also requested, in statements to Televisión Española, that the royal decree put an end to evictions without housing alternatives.

From there, the uncomfortable question arises: who will put a flat up for rent under those conditions? Those who reject the measure argue it would achieve the opposite of what it claims.

Legal Certainty and the Small Landlord

The core of the conflict is legal certainty. The most repeated argument doesn't concern large funds or REITs, but the individual with one or two flats who used to rent them out and is now seeing them as a problem. Without guarantees of recovering the property, such a landlord sells, closes, or changes its use. The camp's proposal, in that logic, wouldn't create affordable housing: it would make it disappear from the market.

A forum user recounts an episode that, according to their version, illustrates the climate. Among the candidates for a rental flat in Madrid's Las Águilas neighborhood was a young journalist. The landlords—relatives of a work colleague—checked her social media and found messages encouraging the sending of requests to the landlord to block any rent increases. The flat ended up going to another couple. Her posts were, in practice, her letter of introduction.

Tourist Rentals, Squatting, and the Shift in Supply

The other half of the diagnosis points to speculative use. Some argue that the supply hasn't vanished by magic: it has shifted to tourist rentals, seasonal rentals, or remains empty, and this shift is due to daily or room rentals yielding much higher returns than residential ones. Squatting, adds the same side of the debate, is quantitatively residual and is invoked alarmistly to halt any regulation.

The clash gets tangled in the urban map. Some argue that tourist flats are small central apartments not very useful for permanent living; others reply that these thousands of homes push demand towards neighboring districts and the periphery, and that pressure rises in a chain reaction throughout the city. No one concedes on the diagnosis.

Building Housing: From Land to Bricks Takes Years

Almost all voices agree on one thing: there's a housing shortage. The problem is the timeline. A debate participant calculates that urbanizing land and building flats requires years of investment without return, and that there aren't many developers willing to tie up capital for over a decade. If the expectation is for private supply to correct the imbalance in the short term, the deadlines don't align. Criticism of the Tenant Union doesn't dispute the goal, it disputes the means.

The protest camp will remain in Sol until someone gives in. It's possible that by the time that happens, the flat they were demanding will have already been converted into a tourist apartment. Such are the ways of the market.