The total amendment that the Consell de Garanties Estatutàries has made to the bill to restrict home purchases has not taken the business and real estate sector by surprise. Since the Govern accepted this initiative from the commons in exchange for their votes to approve the 2026 budgets, entities and professional associations have warned that it contravened fundamental precepts of the Constitution and the Statute.
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They made it clear actively and passively Foment del Treball, real estate agents (API), owners, and specialists in Administrative and Urban Law. Warnings that fell on deaf ears. Now that the Catalan advisory body has given them reason, they consider that it is not enough to modify the text, as suggested by the Govern spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, last Tuesday.
They instead argue that the Illa Executive must mark a new chapter in housing policies and open a constructive dialogue with the sector. It is necessary – they continue – to find “effective and legally solid” measures against the access crisis that Catalonia suffers, especially in the rental sector.
The Executive must open up to dialogue, say businesspeople and professionals
The first step is to definitively withdraw the law to limit home purchases, now in parliamentary processing. This is requested by Foment, the association of Real Estate Agents of Catalonia, the association of Developers, the Col·legi d’Administradors de Finques, the Consell General de Cambres de la Propietat Urbana, and the Consell Oficial de Col·legis d’API de Catalunya.
“The Govern cannot limit itself to introducing formal tweaks or seeking a new legal formula to keep the same interventionist will intact,” said the employers’ association chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre.
The opinion of the Consell de Garanties unanimously considers that the proposal from the commons and the PSC Govern violates the right to private property and freedom of enterprise, invades state competences, and intends to alter essential aspects of civil law through a modification of urban legislation. All this, despite the Generalitat assuring that the bill was viable and legally fitting. This was the conclusion of the committee of experts appointed by the Govern and the party of former mayor Ada Colau at the beginning of the year.
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Although the Consell’s analysis is not binding, it calls into question both the work of the committee of experts and the bill itself, agree businesspeople and the real estate sector. This seeks that municipalities in pressured areas can veto home purchases according to their use. In this way, properties could only be acquired to be used as the buyer’s residence or for regular rental with capped prices.
More supply, land mobilization, administrative agility, and legal certainty among the demands
The sector’s intention, however, is not to remain stuck in reproaches but to collaborate to find solutions. “Any legislative reform must provide legal certainty, promote public-private collaboration, and encourage an increase in housing supply, the main structural challenge facing Catalonia,” say API and owners.
Foment has also requested that the Govern convene economic, social, and municipal agents to agree on a “stable, rigorous, and effective” housing policy. “Catalonia needs more supply, more available land, less bureaucracy, greater administrative agility, and legal certainty,” they add.
Regarding this last point, they emphasize that since January 2025 Catalonia has approved five regulations with direct impact on the housing market – decree laws 1/2025, 2/2025, and 3/2026, and laws 11/2025 and 11/2026 – which have successively modified essential aspects of housing advertising, contracting, temporary rentals, the definition of large holder, and the sanctioning regime. Despite this, access problems persist. The APIs recall in this regard that even the Agència de l’Habitatge de Catalunya itself had to publish interpretative criteria on the application of the rent containment regime once it was already in force, “which highlights the lack of predictability of the regulatory framework.”
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Now, they all conclude, it is time to stop and agree on new steps.
