New Housing Law 2023

THE Spanish government proposed a new housing law in February 2022. This new law, which is the first of its kind, has finally been agreed upon and is pending approval from the Spanish Parliament. It focuses on rental proper ‐ties in what they are call ‐ing ‘stressed areas’.

A ‘stressed area’ under the new law is an area where the cost of the mortgage or rent, plus bills and other basic prop‐erty costs, exceeds 30 per cent of the average in ‐come or where the rent has risen by 5 per cent above the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

This new law has rede ‐fined what a large and small landowner is. A large landowner is now someone who owns five properties or more, it used to be 10. A small landowner owns less than five properties. The most controversial part of this new law is the fact that the tenant will no longer pay the real estate fees.

To ensure there are no loopholes in this new law they have prohibited the inclusion of extra charges (community fee, garbage removal, etc) and you cannot come to an ‘agree‐ment between parties’ contrary to the housing agreement. They have in ‐cluded tax benefits that will help offset these ex ‐tra costs for the owners.

Another big change is the elimination of the CPI when calculating the cost of the rent, it is capped and cannot increase by more than 2 per cent in 2023 and 3 per cent in 2024. They have also in ‐cluded new measures to protect against evictions.

Betty Henderson

A BRAND‐NEW study by Elec‐tomanía, a leading Spanish polling company, has revealed the Region of Murcia is the most ‘hated’ autonomous community in Spain.

The study, released on Thursday, April 20, surveyed 1,620 people across the coun‐try and asked them about their ‘spontaneous feelings’ to‐wards their own autonomous community and the others.

According to the results, As‐turias is the most valued re‐gion in Spain, followed by Gali‐cia, the Basque Country, and Navarra. But the region of Murcia ranks at the bottom, with a score of only 6.2, even lower than the north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.