The Department of Territory of the Generalitat sent to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, to give its green light “as soon as possible”, the declaration of 140 Catalan municipalities as areas of stressed residential market in which it will be possible according to the new law to limit rental prices, according to EFE.
The Catalan administration has already published this list of areas in the official newspaper of the Generalitat, but state legislation provides that, once notified, the Ministry must publish a resolution that includes the list of stressed residential market areas declared by the Government, and which are valid for three years.
In the communication to the ministry, the regional executive insists that it “approve the resolution as soon as possible with the aim of being able to apply the measures contained in the law.”
From that moment, in the areas declared tense, the rent of the new contracts may not exceed the price of the last contract in force in the last five years, once the annual update clause of that contract has been applied, the Government recalled in a statement . In addition, in the case of a large holder, the rent may not be higher than the rental price reference Index.
On the 16th, the Generalitat reduced from 10 to 5 the number of properties that must be owned to be considered a large holder. With the publication and communication to the ministry, the department of Territori culminates the process that began on June 22, with the start of the processing of the tense areas.
Among these 140 municipalities included in the rental limitation are towns in the Barcelona metropolitan area, the provincial capitals or the regional capitals, where 6.2 million people live and 80.6% of the population of Catalonia is concentrated.
These municipalities meet the requirements established by state law to be declared “stressed areas”, such as that the rent cannot represent more than 30% of the income that families have or that the increase in rental prices in the last five years is 3 percentage points higher than the evolution of the CPI.
The Housing Law establishes differences in setting the rental price of a home depending on whether the owner is a large holder or not: in the case of properties with a large holder, the rental price will be limited to the reference price index of the Generalitat , while in the case of small holders the price of the new contract will be marked by that of the previous one.
