Government to restore Housing protections

Oct 2

RTVE reports that the cabinet plans to reapprove two housing decrees on October 6 after their rejection in Congress. According to Sumar, the measures include protection from vulnerable-household evictions through 2030, two-year lease extensions and rules for tourist and seasonal rentals. Ernest Urtasun says technical changes will not reduce the agreed protections. Macarena Bartolomé and María León explain that ratification would move from the full Congress to its 69-member Permanent Deputation after dissolution, where Junts has less leverage and the government has a more favorable balance. The opening says Moncloa has secured ratification, but the package closes with PNV sources saying their decisive support awaits examination of the text; neither adoption nor ratification has yet occurred.

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 President Francina Armengol announced that it was repealed after a public roll-call vote.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.