End to the rental price limitations in Barcelona

Do you remember that a few months ago the Law regulating rental prices came into force, limiting rents in Catalonia?

Well, on March 10, 2022, the Constitutional Court declared the measure unconstitutional, leaving it without effect in all those affected municipalities.

At KM2 Real Estate Services, we will analyze how the new sentence affects, when it will become effective and which contracts will be affected.

The Rental Price Regulation Act of 2020

The “Law 11/2020 on urgent measures to limit rent prices in housing leases” was approved by the Parliament of Catalonia last September 2020. It regulated the price of rents in 61 Catalan municipalities, Barcelona included.

This regulation forced owners to freeze/reduce the rental price of their properties in those areas that were considered “stressed market areas”.

The objective was to avoid any abusive price increase and set limits that were regulated by the reference index.

The new sentence of the Constitutional Court of 2022

With the new regulation of the Constitutional Court ends, 18 months later, the limit on rental prices in all affected municipalities.

The reason? The Constitutional Court qualifies as unconstitutional the articles that set the basis for the price limitations.

1. Which contracts will be affected?

There were 170,000 rental contracts signed during the regulation. The annulment of the Catalan Rental Law will not affect any of them, since the new regulation will not have retroactive effects. In other words, it will only begin to apply to contracts that are signed from the day of the publication of the sentence.

“The effects will be for the future, so the housing lease contracts entered prior to the time of this resolution remain in their stipulated terms”

2. Who will be the main beneficiaries?

The measure is very good news not only for the rental market in Catalonia, but also a great relief for those owners who saw their rents reduced from one day to the next.

It is also a great advantage for those owners who wanted to invest in the real estate market. This Law could have stopped them, but now they have the freedom to invest and get a good return.

Is it your case? If you want to rent your apartment in Barcelona, at KM2 we will take care of doing it quickly, profitably and without complications.

3. When does this measure start?

The new regulation is already active from the day the ruling was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), specifically from April 8, 2022.

You can read the full publication, here