Congress unanimously approves the suspension of evictions of vulnerable debtors until 2028

The plenary session of Congress of Deputies approved this Thursday, for unanimity, thesuspension of evictions mortgages for debtors vulnerable situation until May 15, 2028.

The approval came after a debate that raised the possibility of making permanent a measure that has seen extensions for more than a decade.

The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, has justified the need to maintain this protection “to avoid situations of social exclusion of people who could lose their homes if they cannot pay the mortgage bill”, in a situation of high prices. important in which “the future remains uncertain”, he said.

The Royal Legislative Decree, ratified by 347 votes in favor and abstention of a Vox deputyis now being treated as a bill, which means that changes can be made to the text.

The suspension of mortgage foreclosures has its origins in the Law on Measures to Strengthen the Protection of Mortgage Debtors, Debt Restructuring and Social Rent, which was adopted by the PP government in 2013 to alleviate the consequences of the 2008 economic crisis.

This law paralyzed for two years the mortgage foreclosures of families in a situation with a particular risk of social exclusion, including large families and single-parent families with at least one dependent child, families with minors or with dependents or disabled family members, victims of gender violence, the unemployed and people over 60 years old.

Since The moratorium has been extended several timesthe last one at the initiative of Podemos, in May 2020, just after the outbreak of the covid pandemic, with a decree that not only extended it for four years, but also expanded the possibilities to accommodate a greater number of families.

He PP has supported the measure after claiming that it was Mariano Rajoy’s government that approved it for the first time and accusing Pedro Sánchez’s executive of “turning housing into a state problem in the last six years, due to erratic policies of it”.

Also Vox has supported her so that “those who are having the worst time at a critical moment do not pay the price for their misdeeds and their parties,” deputy Carlos Hernández Quero snapped at the minister.

During the debate, the representative of Add, Alberto Ibáñez has attacked the banks and the ‘vulture funds’ and demanded from the Socialists, with whom they govern in coalition, a 3% increase in the Multiple Effects Public Income Indicator (IPrem) in 2024. He has also defended the obligation to to register in the property register that there is a moratorium on evictions in that house, “so that when a fund wants to buy it, it knows that there is a family in it that is protected by the state.”

The leader of Can, Ione Belarra has stressed that this measure is a “Band-Aid” for vulnerable people and has put forward proposals to address the “very serious problem of vulture fund speculation” that she says Spain is facing, including expropriating the use of the half of the homes of large landlords.

The deputy of PNV Idoia Sagastizabal has pointed out that “it may be time to approach the law differently so that the affected families do not live among extensions”, while the representative of EH Bildu Oskar Matute estimates that this “palliative” measure will only benefit 13% of people being deported. For its part, Néstor Rego (BNG) has demanded that it be made “final” after more than ten years of validity.