The rent limits will not be a stumbling block for the Budgets, which the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday, and its implementation is imminent.
That is what United We Can and the PSOE, the two coalition forces of the Executive, have agreed to overcome the barriers in the negotiation of public accounts.
The pact between the two parties indicates that the issue will form part of the future housing law, which is currently in the public information phase, as the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda intended.
But the new pact adds details to what was known until now and outlines as one of the objectives: to establish "containment mechanisms, or eventually lower prices, both for new contracts and existing contracts."
Sources from the aforementioned ministry point out that this allusion to existing contracts is designed to propose tax credits, something that for example is done in Portugal, and thus incentivize landlords to reduce the rents they charge.
"You can not lower a contract in force, but you can include actions that can promote that," explains the same source, making it clear that any measure that is cited now is by way of example, since it must be in the development of the future law, and in dialogue with all the parties involved, where the specific mechanisms are defined.
"This Government is going to take sides in favor of those who live on their salary and depend on it to pay for a house," said the second vice president, Pablo Iglesias, in a joint appearance with the president on Tuesday.
Behind the push for the measure is the vice president.
The leader of Podemos took advantage of the last hours before presenting the draft Budgets to force the PSOE to negotiate an advance on a fundamental issue for his electorate.
Basically, the idea of leaving the rent limits for the housing law is what the socialist wing of the Government wanted from the beginning, which was already contemplating having that rule ready at the beginning of 2021. But Podemos gives speed to the initiative and manages to start a concrete commitment to deadlines: the Council of Ministers has three months to give it the green light and the text must reach Congress in a maximum of four months.
There, theoretically, it should overcome the obstacle because many parties that supported the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez already signed an agreement in favor of the measure last Friday, although the PNV was not present.
"Consensus with social agents"
In addition, the agreement released this Tuesday indicates that together with the ministry led by José Luis Ábalos, on which state housing powers fall, the Second Vice-presidency of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, headed by Iglesias, will be a co-proponent of the future law.
The elaboration of the norm will be done "on the basis of the necessary agreement and cooperation with the autonomous communities and municipalities and with the consensus and dialogue with the social agents, unions and the representatives of the sector, counting among them with the unions of tenants" .
It will not be a simple consensus, as real estate companies reject price regulation in a massive way.
The measure has always been controversial, even among the members of the Executive, despite being included in one of the points of the coalition government's program.
Podemos had been paying the ground for days, emphasizing the need to advance in the regulation of the price of rents.
Iglesias even received tenant unions 10 days ago to publicly show their commitment to this measure.
This Monday everything was ready for Sánchez and Iglesias to jointly present the draft bill on Tuesday before approving it in the Council of Ministers.
This was announced mid-morning by the president at the 23rd conference of presidents.
Hours later, Unidos Podemos tried to change the script: "An agreement has not yet been closed to be able to bring the budget project to the Council of Ministers tomorrow."
Making the disagreement public and opposing Sánchez within hours of a key presentation for the future of the legislature had one objective.
Iglesias did not leave the table until there was an agreement on rents and minimum income.
In the PSOE there was never any doubt that the approval of the draft would go ahead in the Council of Ministers this Tuesday.
In United We Can, not really, but before the public handshake between Sánchez and Iglesias they took the opportunity to give their program a push.
Regarding the objectives of the new law, PSOE and United We can undertake to “enable the autonomous communities and the municipalities so that, based on the system of reference indexes of housing rental prices developed by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Agenda Urbana can establish their index of agreements with an objective methodology and subject to periodic review ”.
This indicator will serve to “articulate basic mechanisms” and that local or regional administrations can “declare objectively and based on technical criteria, temporarily and exceptionally, an urban area with a stressed market”.
This formula is similar to what the coalition government agreement already contained.
Limits taking into account current prices
However, the agreement introduces two possibilities about what will be done in those areas of stressed prices.
The first is that "containment mechanisms will be established, or eventually lower prices, both for new contracts and existing contracts."
The second is that "in any case (...) unjustified increases in new leases will be contained, taking as a reference the price of the previous lease and limiting the increases allowed to the situations contained in the housing law" .
This second is the one that unequivocally refers to putting a price limit on new rentals, always within the areas that previously communities or municipalities declared stressed, and bets on taking as a reference the last lease contract of a property.
It remains to be defined what will happen to houses that enter the rental market for the first time (or after a long time).
In addition, the pact reached by the two parties that share a presence in the Executive indicates that the law will help "validate the progress of those autonomous communities that have a defined rental price reference system."
The objective in the strict sense, they point out in the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, is to recognize other alternative statistics to the one that the Government put last June, such as those that Catalonia or the Valencian Community have for a long time based on the deposits of the bonds.
That does not mean, they add, to take for good initiatives outside of the legislation that is being prepared.
Recently, the Parliament of Catalonia approved a price control regulation that was born under a sword of Damocles, since the Council of Statutory Guarantees of the Generalitat indicated that it invaded state powers.
United Podemos has defended in the negotiation of the last days the need to shield this law against possible judicial resources to attract a favorable vote to the Budgets of the Catalan nationalists.