There have been no surprises. As expected, the Plenary Session of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has approved, with the support of a majority of 15 of its 21 locals, the ruling on the Government’s Housing Law, which warns that the plans of the coalition government violate the constitutional distribution of powers in this matter. The six dissenting members, who were the same ones who were in favor of a more accommodating report with the Preliminary Draft, will present a private vote according to sources consulted by El Periódico de España.
In very harsh terms, the text goes so far as to state that the Executive’s plans, which include some intervention in the rental market in the so-called ‘stressed areas’, can cause legal insecurity by ‘expropriating’ powers of the autonomous communities.
On price containment, criticizes their limited scope and the “cumbersome” nature of the proposed rules, adding that, “born to combat the effects of the pandemic, its maintenance when it has declined, may not be adequate.” And what’s more, the text states that “the patrimonial burden” entailed by two of the final provisions of the Preliminary Draft -the First and the Fifth- is not faced by the Public Administrations but by private landlords not sufficiently compensated with tax incentives” .
Related news
The 59-page text emphasizes that the “expropriation of regional regulation by the state legislator will undoubtedly generate a situation of great legal insecurity as it will certainly be difficult to determine which norm will apply, the state or the regional, when there is no fully agree with each other. As an example of this overlapping of powers, the text cites the creation of a new Registration of rental contracts.
The text has been prepared by the councilors Enrique Lucas and José Antonio Ballestero -appointed at the proposal of the PNV and the PP- after the same majority on January 14 knocked down a first version made by the also vocal and former socialist deputy Álvaro Cuesta, that validated the project in general terms.