The new anti-eviction decree will include vulnerable people without a rental contract

A group of neighbors celebrates the stoppage of an eviction, last week in Barcelona.Albert Garcia / EL PAÍS

The negotiation of the new anti-eviction decree is progressing.

The conversations between representatives of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (the old Development, which has state powers in Housing) and the Vice-presidency of Social Rights - led respectively by the PSOE and United We Can, the two souls of the coalition Executive - They have been continuous in the last days to outline an agreement in which there are still obstacles to overcome.

But one of them will no longer be on the table at the meeting scheduled for this Wednesday.

According to sources from Transport, there is a coincidence that the norm also includes cases of people who occupy precarious housing, that is, without a rental contract or any legal title that enables them to reside in that house.

This was a condition that United Podemos put, in fact it was contemplated in the budget amendment that it presented together with ERC and Bildu, and was considered until recently as one of the main obstacles to the agreement by both parties.

According to the aforementioned sources, always starting from the basis that no one stays on the street at a time when the authorities ask people to stay home due to the pandemic, the proposal of the Ministry chaired by José Luis Ábalos is that the The decree considers two different situations, depending on whether the home being evicted has or does not have a rental agreement.

In the first case, which basically refers to tenants who do not pay, the novelty would consist in extending the current measures to people who were already vulnerable before the health emergency.

Last March, the Government approved measures that prevent the expulsion of tenants vulnerable to the pandemic, which were later extended twice and are currently contemplating their application until January 31.

But for this moratorium on the eviction to take effect, the tenant has to demonstrate that their vulnerability derives from the covid (for being affected by an ERTE or dismissal after the start of the first state of alarm and that their income has fallen substantially).

The future decree will simplify that and it will be enough to prove the vulnerability for the judge to suspend the execution of the launch temporarily.

Even when?

Transportes' proposal is to do so until the current state of alarm ends, on May 9.

The second part of the anti-eviction regulations must respond to those situations in which evicted families find themselves in such precarious circumstances that they do not even have a rental contract.

Transport seeks that this assumption is clearly different from the previous one and is channeled in a different way, so much small print remains to be defined in the pact.

The Ministry proposes that the judge can temporarily stop an eviction until the family has an alternative place to live.

Currently the Civil Procedure Law, which regulates the execution of the launches by the courts, already contemplates something similar, although only for a certain period of time (one month if the owner is a private individual and three if it is a company) after which the process continues even if no alternative has been found.

"Effective" alternative

That is precisely one of the aspects that remains to be defined, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

United We can believe that there must be "an effective housing alternative."

Sometimes it happens that a family is evicted when it has already been granted social housing, but this right has not yet been made effective.

The way to guarantee that no family person is expelled from a house without having another and also the period in which these measures will be applied are to be agreed.

Yes, there is a coincidence that it will only apply to households in which social services determine a situation of vulnerability.

This is an essential requirement so that the future standard is not confused with a validation of other forms of illegal occupation of houses.

Transport is concerned that a regulation that is too lax in this regard creates "legal insecurity" and this results in some owners withdrawing houses from the rental market, which would reduce an already scarce supply in some cities.

There is also a quorum in which the autonomous communities should be the main responsible for putting these housing alternatives on the table.

Most of the housing powers are transferred and it is these that the public parks manage.

Spain, with only 2.5% of social housing, has one of the scarcest parks in Europe, which complicates the solution to the problem.

But the Government recalls that the state plan was recently modified to reinforce this aspect and special funds have been provided by the covid that at the moment only a few autonomies have launched (Andalusia, Valencian Community, Murcia and Extremadura).

"We have come very close", value the aforementioned Transport sources, who believe that in the most optimistic hypothesis the agreement could be closed this Wednesday. However, the other source consulted points to what remains to be defined as proof that the pact can still be poisoned. And remember that the decree must also include measures to avoid cutting off basic supplies (water, electricity, gas), for which conversations are held in parallel between representatives of United We Can and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, led by the socialist Teresa Ribera. .