Tenants Still Pay Agency Fees: Three Workarounds After the Law

Three workarounds for tenants to pay agency fees

Can tenants still pay agency fees after the law bans them? The Housing Law reached the Official State Gazette on a Friday, and within a week, at least three formats were circulating to ensure payment continues, despite the rule reserving these fees for landlords. The starting point is that landlords do not want to pay or deal with unqualified candidates. The answer remains the tenant.

The three formats bypassing the ban

The first is the eleven-month contract. The argument is that leases under one year are for non-housing purposes and escape the Urban Leasing Law and its Article 20, which prohibits passing fees to tenants. If it works, a long-term contract is signed. It is the star format among those collecting cash.

The second changes the subject: the agency offers the tenant to become its client via a mandate or mediation contract. With fifty people asking about the same flat, someone is always willing to pay to be the first to view it. The payment becomes a purchased advantage, not an imposed condition.

The third is quieter. Landlord and agency agree on a 10% rent increase, and the landlord pays the fee from that margin. Rent of 800 euros: the flat is listed at 880 or rounded to 900. The tenant sees no fee in the contract. They see it in the rent, every month.

Is an 11-month contract legal to avoid the Urban Leasing Law (LAU)?

No. Duration does not change the nature of the contract: housing status depends on use, not months. Simulation to evade a law has a name, fraud of law, with a foreseeable end in courts and costs for the proposer.

The three cases must be separated. Rent hikes to cover fees are legal if they respect price caps, and this is the gaining path. Short contracts trinc by long ones are fragile in litigation. The tenant-signed mandate is, according to the legal analysis in the thread, a fraud of law explicitly prohibited by the rule. One participant compares it to the anti-smoking law in bars: first widespread non-compliance, then fines.

How a 10% rent increase makes the tenant pay three commissions

Let’s calculate the third format. If the landlord raises rent by 10% to pay the agency, the tenant bears this cost for the contract’s duration. In a three-year lease, they fund three commissions: two to the landlord and one to the agency. If this joke lasts five years, the business scales.

The landlord’s expense list is long: property tax, community fees, special assessments, washing machine, fridge, boiler, or paint. A specific case circulating among landlords involves a flat rented for years that, after taxes and expenses, left less than 260 euros per month. With these figures, selling, withdrawing from the market, or keeping it locked is not as eccentric as it seems.

The disappearing offer and the Argentine mirror

The thread brings the Argentine warning: 40% of long-term rental supply disappeared in three years after price controls, with tenants looking for shelter in vans. It is an uncomfortable mirror and also a tricky analogy: no market is identical to another, nor are the rules.

What both scenarios share is the mechanism. When expected returns fall or uncertainty rises, part of the housing stock leaves renting for sale or storage. Less supply, same demand, sustained prices.

Why landlords take flats off the market

A small flat without an elevator in a suburban neighborhood, rented for years to a tenant who left after passing a civil service exam: after expenses and taxes, owners calculated less than 260 euros per month. Antiestéticaring squatting and the new law, they put it up for sale. Instead of 300 euros monthly, they prefer a lump sum.

The opposing argument is strong: if renting is no longer profitable, flats are sold, increasing ownership supply and causing prices to fall. Another view adds that small landlords lack real market power and compete with themselves, while public housing supply remains stagnant. The difference between the two theses is not economic. It is about who absorbs the adjustment cost.

Legal certainty: the lever everyone watches

For part of the analysis, the only real way to lower rents is to reduce the landlord’s risk: the ability to recover the property within reasonable timeframes in case of non-payment or squatting, regardless of proven vulnerability. Without this, they argue, there will be no new supply. With it, landlords would compete again.

Then there is politics. The new law’s rent cap has an expiration date if the government changes tonalidad: the promise to repeal it is already on the table, pending what the voters decide.

The tenant, meanwhile, pays. And they do so without anyone needing to break the law in most cases.