Almost a million euro fine for trying to earn a few thousand. That’s how forceful is the measure just approved by the Generalitat de Catalunya to punish landlords and real estate companies that try to jump the rent limit index approved last year.
The Consell Executiu plans to approve tomorrow a new sanctioning regime that contemplates very serious infractions with fines ranging from 90,000 to 900,000 euros. For example: setting a rent more than 30% above the reference price index could mean a fine of 900,000 euros for the offender.
How is the new regulation applied?
The new regulation seeks to be another tool to tackle different types of abusive contracts by landlords, seeking to protect tenants and establish a more transparent and fairer regulatory framework . Highlights include:
- Prohibition of charging management fees to the tenant.
- Possibility of cumulative penalties
- Municipal power to impose fines
Fight against temporary rentals?
The regulation includes another point, which states that the owner who makes a temporary rental must “indicate the purpose” of this temporary rental.
This measure seeks to attack the problem of temporary rentals in Barcelona, one of the major stressors in the real estate market . However, it remains to be seen whether this pitfall (relatively easy for landlords to overcome), will effectively reduce this problem.
It is not the only problem: Barcelona is also, as a result of this situation, the most expensive city in the country to rent a room, with prices that already exceed what a whole apartment cost until not so long ago.
The agreement, reached between the PSC and the Comuns, responds to a historical demand of the real estate sector to curb speculation in an increasingly stressed rental market. The measure seeks to protect tenants and establish a more transparent and fairer regulatory framework.
And although various sectors applaud the measure, others see it as a patch that still does not attack the main problem of housing in the city, seasonal rentals or tourist apartments, and consider that this measure could push owners to take advantage of this temporary rental model even more.