The president of the API association of estate agencies in the Balearics, José Miguel Artieda, says that there has been a reduction across Spain. In the Balearics, he estimates that there has been a ten per cent fall. In Catalonia, it is reckoned to be as much as 20%. Owners are preferring to leave their properties unoccupied rather than give tenants the legal guarantees created by the new law.
Artieda explains that the law establishes that automatic renewal of rental contracts plus a one-year extension can mean a minimum of six years; this is seven years if the owner is classified as being a large property owner.
It may be that owners decide to sell rather than rent out, but Artieda suggests that the law may lead to there being ever more empty properties. The National Statistics Institute's latest housing census gives a figure of 105,000 empty properties in the Balearics. As the total number of dwellings in the Balearics is just over 650,000, almost one-sixth of all properties are empty.
The new Partido Popular government in the Balearics has announced that it will lodge an appeal against the housing law on the grounds of unconstitutionality.
