Two housing decrees and the all-in gamble the government is handing to Junts

Two housing decrees and an all-in gamble on the partners

The Government has struck a deal that, in reality, takes the problem off its hands. PSOE and Sumar have agreed to issue not one but two housing decrees to accommodate all the measures of the so-called vía Maricarmen, and then they have left approval of both texts in the hands of their parliamentary partners. The consensus exists. Only on paper. The vote, the one that really decides, is still pending.

When an Executive boasts of consensus and in the same sentence washes its hands of who will vote for it, it pays to read the fine print. The plan is not to pass it: it is to spread the political cost.

What the two housing decrees include

The texts have been split in two. According to one of the thread’s posts, the first, more basic one, has Junts’s support; the second, which carries the reform of the rental law and the most interventionist package, remains outside the agreement and would end up being voted for by Sumar and Podemos. A balancing act that places each piece where it does least damage to the official narrative.

Some argue the maneuver is pure theater: if the radical decree falls, the Government keeps the photo of the attempt and leaves the opposition looking like the one that brought down the supposed protection for tenants. The opposite argument is that, without a majority, any housing decree is an empty gesture. Both diagnoses fit, and neither is closed.

Why Junts maintains its veto on the rental decree

Junts maintains its veto on the housing decree because it views the inclusion of the rental-law reform in it as an «imposition». This is no minor detail: the pro-independence party is putting its base of small property owners and shopkeepers on the line. And there lies the trap.

If Junts and PNV vote in favor of automatic renewal and the suspension of evictions, they alienate their most productive voters. If they vote against, they are portrayed as the ones who blocked the rule. Either path costs votes. The suspension of evictions until 2030, according to one of the posts, appears as the point that the partners simply cannot vote for.

Politics for con artists, sums up the most repeated sentiment. And it is not far off: the one who signs the rule that paralyses land development is the same one who calls for protests over housing.

Owners respond by raising the price

On the supply side, the most widespread diagnosis is that regulating more makes rent more expensive rather than cheaper. The argument that excessive intervention in private property produces the opposite effect to the one intended, with Catalonia cited as a reference case.

The other side shows up in the landlord’s day-to-day reality: according to several participants, under a more rigid framework, the owner will demand more guarantees from the tenant. Guarantors, payslips, months in advance. Legislating in haste, those who know the paperwork argue, is the worst thing that can be done with such a rigid market.

And there remains the problem of defining speculative buying. Any wording they try ends up knocking down the person who bought for their child, the one who inherited and does not sell because of family troubles, or the one who waits two years for the city council to approve a project. The rule, they say, ends up pointing the finger at the small saver while leaving the big one untouched.

900 laws and 960,000 pages of regulation a year

There is the figure no press conference mentions. Spain publishes 900 laws and 960,000 pages of regulation every year. In 2016 alone, the State and regional governments approved 681 new regulations and 895,820 pages of official gazettes. Between 1970 and 2016, state regulations total 41,336, at an average rate of 900 laws a year.

That is the real bottleneck: overregulation, extreme bureaucracy to obtain licenses and free up land, legal uncertainty. Add to that a country with record figures for divorces, tourism and migratory pressure on the existing housing stock, and the result is no mystery.

For some participants, owners who supplement their pension with an inherited flat have now joined the list of the new public enemy. From rentiers to suspects in one stroke. Cui prodest? Let each draw their own conclusions.

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Two decrees, two opposing camps and a vote that is still pending. If the problem is supply and paperwork, what exactly does a third legal text on top of the other two fix?