The Government rules out offering alternatives to the 40,000 affected by the fall of the rent extension

PalmEvery time a rental contract ends and needs to be renewed, tenants face a possible price increase. In the Balearic Islands, due to the context of constant demand increase, this rise can be significant. After the fall of the royal decree-law that established an automatic extension of contracts ending in 2026 and 2027, up to 40,000 tenants in the Islands (according to data from the Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs) may once again be faced with this situation. However, the Balearic Government will not take any alternative measures to compensate these residents.

"The responsibility for housing policy lies with public administrations, not with landlords," defended the first vice president and spokesperson for the Government, Antoni Costa. This regulation, in fact, lapsed this week after failing to secure the necessary support in the Congress of Deputies: the PP, Vox, Junts per Catalunya, and Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) voted against it. "We must not place housing policy on the shoulders of landlords," he said. Nevertheless, he called for the "responsibility" of these landlords so that, if they so wish, they refrain from asking for more money for rents. "What would be the wish? That there wouldn't be a tsunami of price increases," he explained. Thus, Costa recalled that the PP has submitted an amendment to the law on strategic projects – which is currently being processed in the Parliament – to provide tax incentives to small landlords so that they do not raise prices, and he asked the other parties to support it.

Costa recalled the differences between the PSOE and Sumar in approving this extension last March (Sumar ministers even boycotted the rest of the government). Thus, he insisted that a similar extension has only been approved in a pandemic context, an "exceptional" and "crisis" situation. Thus, the first vice-president denied that the current situation of market tension in the Islands has the same characteristics. "It is not a crisis, it is a structural problem," he stated. Thus, he positioned himself against any market intervention.