Housing protections lapse Lawyers explain uncertainty

Oct 2

RTVE explains the measures lost when Congress rejects the two housing decrees: vulnerable-household eviction protection, a two-year lease extension, the 2% rent-update cap, restrictions involving investment funds, seasonal and room-rental rules, tourist-flat VAT and subsidies or tax deductions. The report cites recently halted Barcelona evictions as examples without fully documenting individual cases. Lawyer Javier Rubio says halted evictions will resume; Claudia Casanueva says judges must decide whether proceedings resume or remain suspended. Both discuss tenants who requested extensions during the decrees' brief validity. Rubio says a landlord's challenge would lead to a judicial determination, and Casanueva recalls earlier unresolved litigation. The account does not establish a final judgment about those requested extensions.

On October 2, 2026, Spain's Congress of Deputies rejected Royal Decree-Law 26/2026 of September 29, the main package of urgent housing measures, by 178 votes against to 172 in favour, with no abstentions among 350 votes cast. President Francina Armengol announced that it was repealed after a public roll-call vote. This is the narrow defeat reported by ARD, whose brief identifies eviction protection in specified cases and tighter short-term-rental rules without supplying an identifier or tally. In the plenary debate, Isabel Rodríguez defended the package as a negotiated balance of tenant protection, support for small landlords and affordable-housing measures and offered urgent processing as a bill after ratification. PSOE, Sumar, ERC, EH Bildu, BNG, Podemos and Compromís backed it; PNV and Coalición Canaria expressed reservations but supported this first decree. PP, Vox, Junts and UPN opposed it, arguing that the government's approach failed on supply or harmed legal certainty and small owners. Those policy predictions and accusations remain the speakers' positions. The separate vote on decree 27/2026 is a different occurrence. Later RTVE and Tagesschau reports recap the same first-package defeat. RTVE’s legal account explains lost eviction, rent-cap, tax, short-term-rental and existing-contract-extension protections and retains uncertainty over judges’ treatment of extensions requested during brief validity. Mercedes’s complete personal follow-up describes a threatened existing lease and her pledge to stay, without a court outcome. Other RTVE political, camp and regional reactions refer to both defeats together and remain shared accounts of two distinct votes; predictions about elections and mobilization are not completed outcomes. RTVE's October 3 complete political report in show 295 retrospectively describes both defeats together and includes Redondo's criticism, Illa's disappointment, Junts's contrary policy assessment and Turull's electoral-interest allegation, with the other parties' housing/electoral responses. Retain these as a shared response to two separately identified votes, not a new combined vote or a called election.