How the Housing Law Affects Rentals
The new housing law has been approved by Congress on May 26, 2023 and affects 61% of households.
How does it affect you?
One of the fundamental changes of the new law is to limit the update of the rental price to 2% for the year 2023 and 3% from January 1, 2024. From January 1, 2025, the INE informs us that a new total rental price index will be created, which will not be the CPI. This new index will determine the maximum annual increase in rents.
New law brings more rights for tenants
The new housing law obliges the landlord to pay all the expenses derived from the lease.
What do these expenses include?
Insurance against non-payment of rent;
-The real estate management expenses and those of formalization of the contract will be paid by the owner;
-community expenses, etc.
One of the long-term objectives of the law is to establish a limit in the stressed areas.
What is meant by stressed zone is in the law, but actually the ones who determine whether an area is stressed or not are the Autonomous Communities.
If the property is located in a stressed area and has been previously rented, the price of the new rental contract will be linked to the previous contract. However, homes that have not been previously rented will also have a price limitation.
Another highlight of the new law concerns large tenants.
A large tenant is a natural or legal person who owns more than 10 properties or whose surface area exceeds 1500 m2 (excluding garages and storage rooms). If the dwellings are located in declared stressed areas, then the number of properties is reduced from 10 to 5.
In the event that the lessor is not a major tenant, the increase will be that agreed between the parties and, in the absence of an agreement, may not exceed the aforementioned annual rent update rates.