Spain’s renters lose two-year lease extension

Spain's Congress struck down both of Pedro Sánchez's emergency housing decrees on 2 October. The vote stripped renters of the right to request two extra years on expiring leases and of a revived shield against eviction. The broader package fell by 172 votes to 178, and a second text on lease renewals fell by 166 to 184 (Congreso, EFE). The Catalan party Junts decided the first vote. Renters are left with the lease terms Spanish law already guaranteed.

Both texts were royal decree-laws. These are emergency laws a government can apply immediately, but they lapse unless Congress validates them within 30 days (Spanish Constitution). At that stage deputies can only accept or reject the text as written. The broader decree had been in force for roughly a day when it fell (Civio, BOE).

What renters had for a day

The main decree let tenants whose leases ended before 31 December 2028 ask for up to two more years, provided they were up to date on rent. Landlords had to agree unless an exception applied, such as needing the home to live in themselves (RDL 26/2026). The decree also revived a ban on evicting vulnerable households with nowhere else to go (El País). Smaller measures fell with it, including a freeze or cap on annual rent increases through 2027 (ABC).

The second decree went further. It would have renewed leases automatically in new five- or seven-year blocks. A landlord who ended a lease would generally have owed the tenant at least 12 months' rent in compensation (RDL 27/2026).

Why Junts said no

Because the measures came as two decrees, each faced its own vote. On the broader one, Junts' seven deputies made the difference. If they had simply abstained, the decree would have passed 172 to 171 (La Voz de Galicia). The conservative Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox opposed both texts, as Junts did. The renewal decree lost by a wider margin because two smaller parties that backed the broader package voted against it: the Basque nationalist PNV and Coalición Canaria (Infobae).

Junts' objection targets the rules that put costs on owners. Under the main decree, a landlord had to accept a tenant's extension request. The eviction shield could also keep a vulnerable household in a home its owner wanted back. Junts argues that obligations like these will drive owners out of the rental market, shrinking supply and pushing up prices.

The party cites Banco de España data showing that private individuals owned 91.9% of market-rent homes in 2021 (EFE). That figure shows who would bear the cost. It does not show that those owners would leave the market. Junts demanded that both texts be withdrawn and tabled its own draft, built on extensions that landlords would grant voluntarily (elDiario.es).

The party held that line under public pressure. In the days before the vote, the government was still trying to calm a wave of protest over housing (Le Monde).

What survives, and what doesn't

The Urban Leases Act, Spain's main rental law, still stands. It guarantees a lease of at least five years when the landlord is an individual and seven when it is a company. After that, if neither side gives notice, the lease rolls on one year at a time for up to three more years (El Confidencial).

Tenants who requested an extension during the decree's brief life face real legal uncertainty. Neither repeal says what happens to requests already filed (Demócrata).

Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo responded to the defeat by calling for a snap election. As of 2 October, no dissolution of parliament had been decided (Euronews).

The record supports a narrower verdict than an election showdown. Junts' refusal alone was enough to sink the broader protections, even with housing anger on the streets. That leaves renters where they stood before the decree. Sánchez's minority government cannot pass tenant protections by decree on this question unless it wins over a party that sees those protections as a cost dumped on private landlords. This vote does not settle what Sánchez proposes next. It does show that any new text must first get past Junts.