The Minister of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, Pablo Bustinduy, has assured that the Government will be “relentless” in imposing sanctions on those housing rental management companies. who have charged improper commissions to tenants. The Ministry, through the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs, reported this Monday that an investigation has been opened into housing rental management companies that would have forced tenants to pay a commission for the management of the leasefor charging disproportionate deposits or forcing temporary contracts to be signed without the temporary nature being justified. However, the president of the real estate brokerage association (Fadei), Miguel Ángel Gómez, has assured that there are hardly any complaints from consumers to the sector.
The head of Consumption has stressed that some of these practices are “illegal and prohibited by the housing law”, which is why Consumption has opened this investigation to real estate agencies that operate at the state level and that at the regional level will be the housing authorities. autonomous consumption that must take action on these complaints. “It cannot be that abusive practices are normalized in the rental market and that the rights of consumers are violated,” he stressed.
Regarding the sanctions, Bustinduy has indicated that they will depend on the type of infraction, which can range from serious to very serious, but that it is also foreseen that it can be sanctioned with up to 6 to 8 times the illicit benefit obtained in the case of serious and very serious sanctions. Specifically, infractions classified as serious may result in fines of up to 100,000 euros and those classified as very serious could result in sanctions of up to one million euros, as indicated by Consumption in a statement. “These are sanctions that can be important. (…) Everything will depend on the course of the investigation,” he concluded.
For his part, the president of the real estate brokerage association (Fadei), Miguel Ángel Gómez, has stated that he thinks it is “fantastic” that Consumption is pursuing fraud in real estate agencies, but has assured that There are hardly any consumer complaints against the sector.
Gómez has pointed out that in all of Spain “there will be no more than ten or twenty complaints and no more than five in the Community of Madrid”, and has challenged the ministry to put the complaints it is investigating “on the table”. “I sit down with them whenever they want and let them tell me how many complaints they have on the table,” said the president of Fadei, which represents more than 10,000 real estate companies, of which, he assures, “none have complaints,” even though they sign thousands of leases a month. After pointing out that he does not rule out that there freelance who are violating the housing law, has pointed out that regulating the sector – in which some 40,000 agencies operate, according to their data – would be the best way to avoid it.
Government maneuvers
Some large housing rental management companies fear that this investigation is part of an “operation” by Sumar from the Government to make them “disappear.” According to sources in the sector, Consumption is “determined to sanction” companies such as Rental Insurance, Rental Negotiation Agency and Guaranteed Income, because the housing movement, with tenant unions at the forefront, “want rental professionals to disappear and “They are dedicated only to buying and selling.”
For these franchises, the point of conflict is the “different interpretation” they have with Sumar and tenant unions of the housing law articlewhich establishes that “the expenses of real estate management and formalization of the contract will be borne by the lessor.” These companies, which carry out “comprehensive management” of the rental, continue to charge tenants for the services they provide in many cases “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, related to technological applications, meters and supplies, among others.
At the same time, the Federation of Real Estate Agencies (FAI), which is made up of 33 associations, more than 1,300 agencies and around 6,000 professionals, has called to “not generalize” what it considers may be the bad practices of “some few” in a sector of some 120,000 professionals, divided into more than 30,000 agencies. “In the face of the premeditated bad practices of a few, zero tolerance on the part of the sector, as we have always been saying,” indicated the president of FAI, José María Alfaro.
After guaranteeing that “there is no widespread non-compliance” with the housing law, Alfaro has vindicated the role of real estate agencies in the “complex” process of renting a home and has pointed out that the fees of these agencies “have never been the problem of rising prices or that many tenants cannot rent.” Along these lines, he has maintained that “in the face of the most serious housing emergency in the last fifty years, what we have to do is focus on the true causes that are causing it.”
