Protest by the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), to demand a moratorium on evictions, last week in Barcelona.Albert Garcia / EL PAÍS
The Government is preparing to extend the special measures approved last March to alleviate the effects of the coronavirus crisis on housing.
According to executive sources, this Tuesday the Council of Ministers will debate an extension so that these measures, which initially apply until September 30, are extended until January 31.
The aforementioned sources assume that the Government will give the green light to the extension this Tuesday, an extreme that has not been confirmed by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, which is on which state competencies in Housing fall.
If so, the restrictions to evict tenants and the mandatory extension of lease contracts that expire at that time will be maintained for four more months.
Also the obligation of large owners (those with more than 10 homes) to accept 50% of the rents or to agree with the tenants to postpone them.
On March 31, the Government approved a royal decree to alleviate the social consequences of the coronavirus crisis.
This led to the ban on evicting tenants in vulnerable situations (those who can demonstrate a substantial loss of income due to the epidemic) if they could not be offered a housing alternative.
The aforementioned prohibition, since the courts normalized their activity after the end of the state of alarm, requires that the affected party request it.
In the same way, the aforementioned decree also established a mandatory extension of lease contracts that expire until September 30 (initially it was going to apply until two months after the end of the state of alarm, but the Executive later extended it until this month).
The extension of the contract, for a maximum of six months, is applied at the request of the tenant and the owner has the obligation to accept it without changing the conditions of the lease at all.
Always according to the aforementioned Government sources, it can now also be requested by tenants whose contracts expire between the next October 1 and January 31.
A third line of action of the March decree imposed a reduction or postponement of rents when the landlord was a large owner.
This was defined as someone with more than 10 urban properties (excluding garages and storage rooms) or with urban properties totaling more than 1,500 square meters.
If the tenant requests some measure to alleviate the monthly rent he pays, these landlords are obliged to apply a temporary reduction of the rents of 50% or a deferral of the payment, which would then be returned prorated over a maximum of three years.
The solution chosen by the owner applies for a maximum of four months.
In principle that will not change, but the Executive can extend the term for tenants to be able to avail themselves of this rule until January 31.
In all cases, the prerequisite is to justify that there is a situation of social vulnerability due to the covid-19 pandemic.
The Government set two requirements for this at the beginning of the crisis.
The first is to move to a situation of total or partial unemployment (ERTE) after the start of the health alarm in Spain.
In the case of entrepreneurs or freelancers, a 40% drop in income or turnover must be proven.
The second condition is that, as a result of the previous one, the income of the family unit does not exceed three times the IPREM (which is equivalent to 1,613.52 euros per month), with some multipliers in the case of having children or dependents in charge .
The extension of the moratoriums on evictions and rental contracts has been claimed for months by activist groups in favor of the right to housing such as the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) or the tenant unions.
These groups, however, are committed to a broader extension, which includes all of 2021. For now, it seems that the Executive will only contemplate an extension for four months and that it will arrive almost on the horn.
The Council of Ministers this Tuesday is held just one day before the date on which the measures were scheduled to expire.
