Spain's Conservative Government Kills Rent Controls Amid Anger

Sharp anger is rising across Spain as housing costs surge and a new wave of protests takes hold. Conservative lawmakers just killed two key bills meant to stop the crisis, leaving tens of thousands of demonstrators furious. The vote happened in parliament on Friday after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tried one last push with his minority coalition. Two decrees failed to pass through the lower house, which has 350 seats.

The first rule aimed to shield vulnerable renters from eviction. It sought to make real estate speculation harder and crack down on short-term leases. The plan also included tax breaks to encourage renting and building new homes. The second decree would have made most leases automatically renew when they ended, essentially locking them in forever. Owners breaking a contract later would owe tenants one year of rent as a penalty.

Sanchez warned politicians to set aside party tricks before the vote. He asked lawmakers to think about ordinary families facing constant fear over rising rents. He specifically mentioned millions of young people who still live with their parents because they cannot afford to leave. "Think about ordinary people, about those who most need the protection of public institutions," he said. "Think about the millions of young people who cannot afford to move out of their parents' homes."

But his plea did not stop the right-wing majority. The Catalan separatist party Junts refused support for the measures. They argued the rules would just tighten the market further. Miriam Nogueras from Junts told X, a social media platform, that such laws would push owners to remove properties from rentals and drive prices even higher. "If they really wanted to protect people, collar the vulture funds, and reactivate housing, they would have already done it," she added. She noted Sanchez's government has held power for eight years. Health Minister Monica Garcia also took a stand on X, calling the outcome a victory for a feudal economy where a minority extracts wages from a majority to fund their luxuries.

The backdrop for this political failure is heartbreaking. Just weeks ago, an 87-year-old woman lost her home of seventy years in Madrid. Maria del Carmen Abascal was evicted after an international investment fund bought her building and raised the rent. Her case sparked outrage late last month and helped ignite these massive rallies.

Now the country watches for what happens next. Local reports suggest Sanchez might call snap elections as early as November if the protests keep growing. The current legislative term ends next summer, but the pressure is mounting fast. Will this housing crisis force a vote before time runs out?

And they do it against their own voters, who also suffer increasingly high rents, live in fear that the contract will end and can even be evicted. Today the right has given rent-seeking a parliamentary majority that it doesn't have on the street, but it's going to pay for it sooner rather than later. Before the parliamentary vote, Marta Soler Gallart, head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Barcelona, explained that neither of the two decrees addressed the housing problem in the medium or long term. Models such as Vienna's with its low rents are cited in support of these decrees, but it is overlooked that the Vienna model and others have low rents because of their long history of creating and maintaining public social housing. Soler Gallart told Al Jazeera on September 30. In Spain, however, public funds are invested in social housing which, after a while, the recipients sell at market price. Soler Gallart also said the new measures disadvantage landlords with small or few properties by extending five-year tenancy agreements by a further two years and by providing an indefinite extension of their leases. However, these extensions are not compulsory if the landlord can prove that they need the property for their own use.

Why are people protesting across Spain? Protests erupted across Spain in late September after 87-year-old Abascal was evicted from her home. The investment fund that bought her building hiked her rent by more than 200 percent to roughly $1,880 a month, a move aimed at pushing out the long-term tenant to make way for lucrative tourist apartments. In recent years, Spain has seen protests against mass tourism, which has been linked to the housing crisis and soaring cost of living. Spain is the second most visited country in the world, attracting 97 million tourists last year. While Abascal has returned to her home, according to her representatives, she has become the face of the country's housing crisis, and people across Spain have been demanding the government address the issue. Angered by parliament's rejection of the government measures, tens of thousands of people took to the streets. It's a shame, Nando de Anguulo, 26, who joined Saturday's protest in Madrid, told the Reuters news agency. It only proves that it is us, the people, who have to adapt to the political parties and not the politicians to what the people want, and this can't go on like that.

While the protests were mostly peaceful, in the southeastern city of Valencia, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up demonstrations. About 30 protesters managed to get inside the City of Arts and Sciences, a landmark cultural building, before police removed them. Meanwhile, in Madrid, Spanish police arrested three members of a far-right group and fired rubber bullets on Saturday night. Far-right activists, some of whom performed Nazi salutes, tried to reach demonstrators camped out in the Puerta del Sol, a central square in the Spanish capital, the Spanish government said. Valeria Racu, a spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, said Saturday's rallies revealed a new energy that we haven't seen in a long time and energy that is showing that eight days of people's power can achieve more than eight years of progressive government. Now begins real politics – politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets, Racu added. Could the housing crisis lead to snap elections? Housing is a sensitive issue in Spain because it impacts how people vote. The average rent in the country has almost doubled in the past 10 years.

Prices for homes are climbing fast. The average cost per square metre jumped from 8.20 euros back in 2016 to 15.1 euros this year, a rise tracked by the real estate site Idealista. That shift means what was about $9.08 then is now roughly $17.15.

For Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the pressure is mounting. In an October 1 piece for Vanity Fair, journalist Jorge Dioni Lopez explained that housing costs are eroding support among educated young people and middle-class children. After eight years in power, this issue has become a major liability.

Lopez wrote that Spain faces a tough political reality. Most of the relevant powers sit with other levels of government. He noted that unlike many European neighbors, almost all public housing built over decades ended up in private hands. Homeownership remains more attractive than renting there.

"Housing is our savings system and also the primary means of transmitting wealth between generations," Lopez added in his analysis. This deep cultural reliance on owning a home makes sudden policy changes extremely difficult.

Tension reached a new peak this week after Spain's parliament rejected government housing reform bills on Friday. Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the centre-right People's Party, immediately called for Sanchez to call elections as soon as possible. He claimed the prime minister has neither the support of the streets nor the parliament.

Sanchez has not officially announced new polls yet. However, Spanish online news site El Diario reports that votes could arrive as early as November 29. That date would come well before the current schedule set for general elections in July 2027. Communities face rising costs and political instability at the same time.