The Congress of Deputies will resume next Tuesday the processing of the Housing Law one year after its approval by the Council of Ministers, although what has been planned is a meeting of the paper, behind closed doors, and lasting less than half an hour.
Specifically, the presentation of the Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda Committee has been convened at 11:30 am next Tuesday, but must finish before 12:00, which is when the plenary session of the Congress is scheduled to beginwhich is incompatible with any other official meeting in the Chamber.
In that plenary session, two government decree laws must be debated and voted on, the last package of economic measures against the crisis and the incentives for labor hiring and the special benefit for artists.
Discrepancies in the Government and with partners
The Housing bill took time to leave the Council of Ministers for differences between the two government partners. It came to Congress in February 2022, and after overcoming the entire debate in March, it took two months for the presentation of partial amendments to be given free rein, and all despite the fact that the two government partners requested that it be processed urgently. .
And in May Unidas Podemos presented a series of amendments to modify the text that had been agreed within the Council of Ministers, which once again paralyzed the processing of the bill. In recent weeks, it seems that positions have been approachingwhich justifies the call for the paper.
One of the points of disagreement between the partners of the Government was the definition of large homeowners, which in the original text are those with more than 10 residences. The Ministry of Transport now seems willing to lower that figure, with conditions. United We Can wanted to leave it in five.
The Executive is also willing to suppress the retroactive nature of the prohibition to disqualify Officially Protected Housing (VPO). Sources from the Ministry clarified to the Europa Press agency that it will only apply to VPOs built after the entry into force of the text and not to the previous ones, as included in the original wording.
Regarding other proposals, The final definition of the stressed residential market remains to be seen. The bill explains that this situation will occur when in an autonomous community the cost of the mortgage or rent (added basic utility costs) exceeds 30% of the income or average household income.
Likewise, a market will also be declared as stressed when the price of buying or renting a home experiences accumulated growth five points higher than the CPI of the autonomous community in the last five years. Regarding this last point, both ERC and EH Bildu presented amendments so that the gap would be reduced from five to two points above the regional CPI.
The competence problem
Other pitfalls are details of the rental price ceiling in stressed areas, the tax incentives in personal income tax to encourage renting at affordable prices, and the scope of the law (ERC wants guarantees that it will not annul the Catalan housing law).
In fact, Esquerra presented a total amendment to limit the norm to the “incidental scope” of the powers of the central government, since “all the autonomous communities have assumed in their statutes of autonomy, without exception, full competence in matters of housing “. His alternative text, however, did not make it through Congress and was rejected with 300 votes against and only 28 in favor.
