The Constitutional Court accepted an appeal from the PP and annulled several articles of the Catalan Housing Law of 2022. Among other elements which, according to the plenary session, invade the powers of the State, there is the obligation to offer social rent before carrying out an eviction. , or the right of a family experiencing residential exclusion to renew their social rental contract once. Two years ago, the same court had already invalidated several articles of the 2020 Catalan housing law which limited rent prices in particularly tense areas.
Part of the judgment also affects the seventh article of the regulation, with sanction implications, which establishes that if a company buys a house it assumes the consequences of non-compliance with the social rent regulations by the previous owner. In this case, explains the Constitutional Court, even the firm sanctions imposed by this article may be revised.
To date, the Generalitat has fined 79 large landlords six million euros for not offering social rentals.
The PP appeal fails several times. For example against the registration of large landlords in Catalonia or the power of the administration to resolve the compulsory transfer of housing for seven years to integrate them into the Rent Fund for social policies. The reform which considered that unoccupied housing “permanently and unjustifiably” for more than two years would be considered a “failure to fulfill the social function” of the owner is also maintained.
The standard was adopted in the Parliament of Catalonia after a broad consensus of the pro-independence parties with the PSC and the Comuns, originally promoted by the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) and the right to housing entities. A rule which recovers the measures against evictions which the Constitutional Court had already annulled at the request of the PP in previous judgments for undermining the powers of the State and which broadens the cases in which large landlords must offer social rents before the expulsions.
Two appeals brought the law before the Constitutional Court. One from the central government, presented solely against the obligation to offer social rent to vulnerable families who occupy apartments belonging to large landlords before initiating legal proceedings, and another, broader, from the People’s Party. The latter called into question eight key articles of the regional law and a transitional provision.
