Under the royal decree, a wave of housing reconstruction will be launched, which Spain will carry out with the help of European reconstruction funds. The plan presented to Brussels indicates an amount of 6.82 billion, 5.52 billion of which fall on the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Raquel Sanchez, the head of the department, spoke to Congress with a promise that this amount will begin to be allocated “in the coming weeks.”
As the minister explained in the parliamentary committee, the bulk of the funds - 2.97 billion allocated for the reconstruction of housing- will repair about 510,000 houses. He also recalled that the plan includes: 1 billion for the construction of 20,000 houses for social rent, 450 million for tax deductions and 1.1 billion in the form of a reserve amount for homeowners’ associations in case of repair work.
Sanchez said aid from European funds to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis will be directed to the entities under his ministry. This operation will be carried out using two regulations, which will be approved shortly. A source in the ministry said that both pieces of legislation should be ready in September this year. One of these acts is a royal decree “regulating real estate and social housing assistance and rehabilitation programs,” Sanchez said. The source, as mentioned above, explains that this decree will serve to regulate the order under which the autonomies can draw up their assistance programs since it was the autonomous communities that have been delegated most of the powers in the field of housing.
At the last industry conference in June last year, the heads of the autonomous communities agreed on a general principle for allocating the amounts according to the needs of each territory. In this regard, it became necessary to establish rules that autonomies will consider when creating rehabilitation programs, which guarantees the receipt of these funds by homeowners’ associations and individuals. The discussion will touch upon such issues as, for example, energy-saving and others. The decree will also regulate the procedure under which local councils and autonomous communities can enter into agreements with the state to construct up to 20,000 units of social housing, using 1 billion in funds received from the European Union.
The second regulation referred to by Minister Sánchez is the Royal Decree Act “to stimulate the restoration of buildings and encourage rental housing”. As explained in the Department of Transport, this text will change some of the laws in force. For example, the law on horizontal ownership, which regulates the activities of residents’ associations, will come into force: requirements will be relaxed, and now it will take fewer votes to approve renovation work in the building (currently, the consent of 3/5 of the residents of the area is required - following the innovation, half of the favourable votes). In short, the idea is to solve all the minor problems that have hitherto prevented house renovation from gaining momentum in Spain. In the Spanish Kingdom, reconstruction activities are less active than in neighbouring countries like Portugal, France and Germany. Moreover, the experience of neighbouring countries should also work as a stimulus for reconstruction.