Madrid (EFE).- The Housing Law, which among other measures will limit rental prices, will come into force tomorrow, Friday, once the text has been published today in the Official State Gazette (BOE), thereby It will begin to apply before the regional and municipal elections this Sunday.
However, it will be until January 1, 2024 what is related to the tax incentives that will be applied in the IRPF to the leases of real estate for housing.
The Housing Law, whose negotiation was unblocked at the gates of the next elections and after three years of contacts, was definitively approved on May 17 in the Senate with the votes in favor of the socialists and the pro-independence groups and of the left on which the coalition government is supported.
A month earlier, the text had received the green light from the Congress of Deputies.
However, it was not until this Thursday when the standard was published in the BOE. In this period, the real estate agencies that work with small owners were already detecting a flight of owners from the rental of their habitual residence towards other modalities or towards sale before the new law officially entered into force, especially in large cities.
Fourteen months after the Council of Ministers sent the draft to Congress, the negotiation to move forward with the Housing Law was unblocked on April 14, when the coalition government secured the necessary votes for it thanks to an agreement with ERC and EH Bildu.
One of the electoral assets
The new Housing Law has been one of the electoral assets for the upcoming elections on May 28.
And it is that, the Government has made housing, beyond this law, one of its main objectives with repeated pre-election announcements that range from agreements with Sareb, to the purchase of land from the Ministry of Defense to promote affordable housing or to a line of public guarantees for the purchase that has generated the rejection of United We Can.
The new text introduces limitations for rent increases.
For this year, the ceiling of 2% in the increase in rents will be maintained, a percentage that will increase to 3% in the annual renewals of rental contracts in 2024 and that by 2025 will be referenced to a new index, lower than the evolution of the CPI, which will be prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and will be ready by January 1 of that year.
On the other hand, the text incorporates changes in the definition of “large holder”, which in the stressed areas will be those with five or more properties and who must set the rent based on the system of reference price indices.
The norm also provides for surcharges of between 50 and 150% on the real estate tax (IBI) for empty homes for more than two years, in order to boost rent.
In addition, it allows an extraordinary extension of one year in lease contracts due to proven situations of social or economic vulnerability, prevents evictions without announcing the date and time, and includes new extensions that allow them to be postponed, among other measures.
