GIPE Newsletter 2nd february 2024

REMINDER NOTES: HOUSING LAW OF MAY 24, 2023

Large holder: for the purposes of the provisions of this law, the natural or legal person who is the owner of more than ten urban properties for residential use or a constructed area of more than 1,500 m2 for residential use, excluding in all cases garages and storage rooms. It can be reduced to holding five properties in stressed residential market environments.

Minimum information in home purchase and rental operations.

The information specified in article 31 is minimum information, as the title indicates, which may increase the regulations of the corresponding Autonomous Community.

Information that the user or consumer must obtain before formalizing the operation, even before the delivery of any amount on account.

General cases:

a) Identification of the seller or lessor and, where applicable, the intermediary.

b) Total price, breaking down concepts, financing or payment conditions.

c) Essential characteristics of the home and the building, including:

• Certificate or certificate of occupancy.
• Accreditation of the useful and built surface, differentiating in the case of horizontal division the private surface from the common ones.
• Age of the building and the main renovations or actions carried out.
• Services and facilities, both individual and common.
• Housing energy efficiency certificate.
• Accessibility conditions of the home and building.
• Status of occupancy or availability of the home.

d) Legal information about the property: the registry identification of the property, charges, encumbrances and conditions, and the participation fee established in the property title.

g) Any other information that may be relevant, including territorial, urban planning, physical-technical, heritage protection, or administrative aspects related to housing.

Special cases:

– In protected housing, express what it is and the applicable legal protection regime.

– In the case of buildings that officially have architectural protection, the degree of protection and the conditions and limitations for reform or rehabilitation interventions will be indicated.

– If the object of the future lease contract is a habitual residence located in an area with a stressed residential market, the owner and the intermediary must communicate this and express in the contract the amount of the last rent for the habitual residence that had been in force in the last five years in the same home, as well as the value that may correspond to it based on the applicable home rental price reference index.

HOUSING RENTAL DURATION 2024

1 year extendable up to (5 if the landlord is a natural person and 7 years if the landlord is a legal entity).

The lessee can give 30 days notice of his/her desire not to extend it. (At the end or in each extension period)

EXTENSION (TACIT ACCORDING TO THE LAW)

At 5 or 7 (according to the above) if neither party notifies in advance (4 months for the lessor and 2 months for the lessee) the will not to renew is extended for annuities up to 3 more years (during this period the lessee can, with one month’s notice, within each annuity, notify non-renewal).

TACIT RECONDUCTION

Once the “tacit extension” has ended and fifteen more days, (if there is no clause that prevents the tacit renewal expressly and there is no prior communication from the owner to recover the home or the tenant from abandoning it) within the deadlines indicated above (4 months for the lessor and 2 months for the lessee), it is understood that the renewal fee occurs, creating a new contract subject to the conditions of the previous one, but subject to the Civil Code, its duration being annual while some of the parties express their intention to terminate it.

RENTAL UPDATE

Year 2024 maximum 3%.

As of 1st november 2025, a new index will come into effect for updating rental prices, the so-called “reference index for the annual update of housing lease contracts.”