Is the index applied throughout Catalonia?No, the index should only be taken into account in the 140 municipalities declared by the Generalitat as polluted market areas. 80% of the Catalan population lives in these 140 municipalities.
These are municipalities in the greater Barcelona area and the provincial or regional capitals, where 6.2 million people live.
These communities have been declared crisis areas because they meet requirements such as rent accounting for more than 30% of family income. In Barcelona, for example, it is over 50%.
In principle, small owners must base their prices on the previous contract.
How much will the rent reduction be?
That is one of the big questions. While waiting for the index to be applied and enough data to be generated to draw conclusions, the APIs predict an average drop in income of 20%, although with a wide spread that could be between 4% and 40%.
The Generalitat, which is very critical of the index created by the government because it has defended another index that, in its opinion, would have been more effective, assures that 36% of the houses in which it is applied will reduce the rent and that Rents will fall on average by 3.5%.
How is it controlled that the rent adjusts to the index?
This is another one of the unanswered questions. The housing construction law on which the index is based does not provide for any sanctions regulations. The standard points out the obligation to report the reference price and the previous contract, but does not go further.
The Generalitat, which has all powers in housing construction, has not yet made it clear how the application of the index will be controlled.
Sources from the Department of Territory have assured that they are examining whether the Consumer Law can be used to punish violators, reminding that tenants can go to the court to directly report any irregularities.
How many houses are big forks?
The Generalitat assures that 12% of houses in Catalonia are owned by large owners. According to his calculations, only 40% of apartments in Barcelona should have their rent reduced.
According to the Observatori Metropolità de l’Habitatge de Barcelona, 84% of owners in the Catalan capital own a single-family home, accounting for 55.5% of the total number of houses. In 2023 there were 524,357 owners and 794,272 apartments.
For their part, owners of 5 or more houses make up 2.2% of the owners (11,777) and hold 23.2% of the inventory (184,111), which corresponds to an average of 15.6 houses per owner.