Congress unanimously approves suspending evictions of vulnerable debtors until 2028

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

The approval came after a debate in which the possibility of making permanent a measure that has been chaining extensions for more than a decade was raised.

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

The Royal Decree Law, validated by 347 votes in favor and the abstention of a Vox deputywill now be processed as a bill, which means that amendments to the text may be introduced.

The suspension of mortgage evictions has its origins in the law on measures to strengthen the protection of mortgage debtors, debt restructuring and social rent, approved by the PP Government in 2013 to alleviate the effects of the economic crisis of 2008.

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

Since then The moratorium has been extended on several occasionsthe last of them at the initiative of Podemos, in May 2020, just after the covid pandemic broke out, 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 the Government of Mariano Rajoy that approved it for the first time and accusing the Executive of Pedro Sánchez of having “converted housing in the last six years into a State problem, due to its erratic policies.”

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

During the debate, the representative of Add, Alberto Ibáñez has attacked the banks and the “vulture funds” and has 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 register in the Property Registry that there is a moratorium on evictions in that home, “so that when a fund wants to buy it it knows that there is a family inside 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 tackle the “very serious problem of speculation with vulture funds” that, in her opinion, Spain suffers, including expropriating the use of the half of the homes of large landlords.

The deputy of PNV Idoia Sagastizabal has pointed out that “perhaps it is time to approach the law differently so that the affected families do not live between extensions”, while the representative of EH Bildu Oskar Matute has estimated that this “palliative” measure only benefits 13% of the people who are evicted. For his part, Néstor Rego (BNG) has demanded that it be made “definitive” after more than ten years of validity.