Spain’s Socialist-led government on Tuesday reapproved two housing decree laws that Parliament rejected last week, a defeat that prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to dissolve the country’s Legislature and call a snap election.
The measures include rent caps, a temporary ban on evictions, and limits on corporate purchases of residential property, moves that followed protests triggered by the forced removal of an 87-year-old woman from her home.
Sánchez, the head of Spain’s main socialist party, said on Monday he was bringing forward an election on Nov. 29 previously scheduled for 2027.
“We need to mobilise and win a much larger progressive majority in parliament, one that will allow us to overcome vested interests, deliver new social advances and continue transforming Spain,” Sánchez said in a televised address.
By calling the election, Sánchez shifted approval of the new rules from the full Congress to a smaller caretaker body where his allies hold a narrow majority.
The measures will come into effect temporarily when the decree is published in the official government journal, the Boletín Oficial del Estado, but must then be sent for approval by the caretaker lawmakers who remain in place after Parliament is dissolved, Sánchez said.
Spain’s government approved two decrees on Sept. 29 to pause evictions from investment-fund-owned properties until 2030. The measures also included rules for small landlords, allowing tenants whose leases expire before the end of 2028 to stay for up to two additional years and capping rent increases at 2 percent through 2027.
The decrees failed after lawmakers from Catalan separatist party Junts, which was supporting the left-wing government, joined the opposition in voting it down, arguing that the proposals would reduce housing supply.
Junts parliamentary spokesperson Miriam Nogueras said the decrees would have the opposite effect of their stated aims.
“Finding housing will become more difficult every day. Our responsibility is to provide certainty, not uncertainty,” she said.
The opposition People’s Party also voted against the measures.
“Housing doesn’t become more affordable through decrees; it becomes more affordable by building more homes,” said PP lawmaker Juan Bravo. “We’re not going to lie to you—it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen quickly.”
Pedro’s government has reissued decrees that largely maintain the substance of the measures rejected by Parliament.
It also includes value-added tax on tourist flats, tax deductions for tenants, tax incentives for landlords who lower rents, help for first-time homebuyers, protections for the state housing stock, and a reduction in value-added tax on protected housing.
The interventionist measures will only serve to drive away the investment needed to increase supply, said Carolina Roca, president of the Association of Property Developers of Madrid.
“The legal uncertainty inherent in both decrees will result in a sharp slowdown in the limited investment secured to date in the construction of affordable housing,” she said.
The attempted eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid triggered nationwide protests.
Police evicted Abascal on Sept. 23 from her Madrid home of more than seven decades. The apartment in the capital’s affluent Retiro neighborhood was bought by investment fund Urbagestion, which sought a significant rent increase that Abascal could not afford.
“I’ve lived here for 71 years, and I don’t want to leave,” Abascal told reporters on the eve of the eviction.
Abascal’s lawyer told the BBC on Sept. 30 that she can now return to the property.
Beatriz Duro said at a press conference there had been “goodwill from both parties” and that she would pay a similar amount of rent under a new contract and not pay the increased amount.
On Sept. 23, Bank of Spain Deputy Gov. Soledad Núñez
saidthat since 2021, an estimated shortfall of about 755,000 homes has built up, and that the gap could widen by another 300,000 between 2026 and 2028.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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