Seminar on Access to Housing (2012)

The outbreak of the financial, mortgage and property crisis in September 2007 led to various and diverse reactions by legislators with regard to the right to housing, especially given the protests and the social reaction regarding excessive mortgage debt and the need to find a use for the stock of homes held by the banks.

These reforms focus on the different types of property tenure. Thus, with regard to renting, in late August the Bill on measures to add flexibility to and promote the home rental market reached the Spanish Parliament. This Bill provides for an amendment to the Law of Urban Leases of 1994 and the SOCIMI (Listed Property Investment Corporations) Law of 2009, while legislators are also drafting the new State Housing Plan, which will be shaped by the current situation.

With regard to ownership, the protection of mortgage borrowers was the objective of the Catalonian Bill for the reform of the Consumer Code of July 2012, which, among other obligations, incorporates increased obligations in terms of the provision of information in the precontractual phase. It is also in Catalonia where legislators are working on a draft law on intermediate property tenures, these being understood to be alternative ways to have access to housing, between ownership and renting, which provides new legal categories that would make it possible to have types of property possession that are more affordable, stable and flexible.

Finally, the excess stock of holiday accommodation in certain areas and the age of the same has led to a transformation in the use of such properties and other holiday accommodation facilities for residential use, which some legislators are trying to regulate and control from a legal-civil point of view, most notably by recording the intended holiday use of the property in the Property Registry.

This Workshop is part of the Research Project “Intermediate property tenures as a way to facilitate access to housing” of the Ministry of the Economy and Competition (DER2012-31409).

This seminar intends to cover all of these questions and more from a scientific-practical point of view, inviting people working in the property and mortgage markets, consumers and academic staff with an interest in the field to take part.