• “If the goal was to provide affordable housing it’s not going to happen. Landlords have not gained confidence in renting.”

The new Housing Law has been controversial since its approval in June 2023. This is reflected by the lawyer Santiago Thomás de Carranza, in the interview published in the latest issue of the magazine Asegurados, published by the General Council of Insurance Mediators.

In four pages, the managing partner of Thomás de Carranza Abogados analyzes the main effects of a law that was proposed with a good purpose but that “is going to fail, because if the objective was to provide housing at affordable prices, it will not be achieved”.

For Santiago Thomás de Carranza “landlords have not gained confidence in renting; the requirements for tenants are going to get tougher; squatting, a real scourge, is not fought against, on the contrary, it is given facilities by hindering the enforcement of contracts before the courts. All of this adds up to higher risks and, therefore, higher prices.”

In the opinion of the managing partner of the law firm Thomás de Carranza, the regulation that has just been in force for six months has five aspects that, in practice, will mark its future:

• Protects the squatter
• It imposes delays in administrative procedures, unnecessarily lengthening judicial procedures.
• It increases the costs to the owner, not only for lost profits, but to recover his house he has to hire a lawyer, solicitor or make repairs in most cases.
• Some parts of the regulation sound good, especially with regard to the liberalization of land, but the problem is that it is no more than a mere pronouncement, because in reality it depends on the municipalities,” says Santiago Thomás de Carranza.

Read the full interview here.