Have you signed a contract for renting an apartment and another one for furniture?

He bill for the right to housing It was approved by the Council of Ministers on February 1, 2022, by the Congress on April 27, 2023, and definitely by the Senate on May 17. It was published in the BOE on May 25. It puts caps on rental prices, tries to protect vulnerable people and also — at least in practice — favors squatters and tenants by prolonging the eviction process.

The consequences of the law did not wait. For example, the information published by La Voz de Galicia on July 2nd under the title: “Landlords in Lugo raised the rent at once by 100 euros because when the tenant moves in, they have no ceiling.” Like the owners of Lugo, and those in the rest of Spain. These days it has also been shown how difficult it is for students to rent apartments in cities with a large influx of tourists, as is the case in Santiago de Compostela, where it is evident that property owners are opting for tourist rentals — it gives more profitability and also more work — than long-term.

The Economist Gonzalo Bernardos Published in Expansion that “the law on housing harms owners, experts in the real estate sector and most families trying to rent an apartment. The emergence of price controls represents a new tax for landlords and a subsidy of the same amount for tenants.

Bernardos studied the adverse effects as well as the possibility of avoiding them with completely legal commercial techniques. Some of them, he pointed out to La Voz de Galicia, are already being applied in autonomous communities like Catalonia, where tensions over real estate are brutal. He explained it the context is characterized by a lack of supply of apartments for rent (tenants who hold out until the end of the contract to avoid a rent increase, lack of investors, increased sales of previously rented apartments…) and in this situation, the owner of the rental property usually dominates. operation. While the reduction in supply hurts less solvent potential tenants.

In order to avoid the negative effects of the law, Bernardos suggests, in addition to seasonal leasing — it is not affected by price controls and it is only necessary that the contract states that you cannot register in a new property — to offer additional rent benefits. For example, rent an apartment and rent furniture at the same time (he charges both, and the second will enable the owner to return part of the purchasing power that he stops receiving due to limited income) or to rent an apartment and a parking lot in parallel (the economic formula is the same as the previous one). The contracts will not be interconnected, and “the commercial formula (cross-selling) is similar to that used by banks: it will be easier to get a competitive mortgage if you hire me for life insurance, bring a salary, etc.,” he adds. The Economist.

Another option is to sign an apartment purchase agreement with the tenant. The owner charges rent and the right to buy, which is deducted from the future sale price. What to do if you don’t want to sell the apartment? Put a disproportionately high selling price. So it will never sell. It would be necessary to study the fiscal effects of this operation which could be seen annually or at the end of the purchase option period.