Low-income 18-35 year olds to receive €250 monthly housing grants

Spanish president Pedro Sánchez has announced that the general budgets for 2022 will include monthly aid of €250 per month for young people aged between 18 and 35 years with an annual income of less than €23,725.

Those up to the age of 35 will be able to access this aid for the next two years. 

The deal is a part of the 2022 budget agreed by the Spanish government coalition partners, the Socialists and Podemos. However, it is which is far from certain to be approved as of yet, as the parties do not have a combined absolute majority in Congress.

Speaking on Tuesday after the announcement of the budget agreement, Sánchez highlighted the measure that aims to lower the average age of people leaving their parents' homes that is "so high," and to encourage young people "to access decent housing."

The Socialist figurehead believes the agreement with coalition partners Podemos is the "best tool" to promote a "fair recovery." 

The Spanish president hopes to present the 2022 budget "in the coming days" and be able to approve them in Congress "in the coming months."

Second vice president and labour minister Yolanda Díaz, of the junior coalition partner, celebrated the "good agreement" in a Tweet. "Big companies will have to pay what they owe," she said.

One of her party's demands was to set a minimum 15% corporate income tax for large corporations. 

Rent price regulation

The budget agreement also includes a new housing bill that aims to regulate rent prices of properties owned by big landowners.

If approved, people who own 10 or more properties will be considered big landowners ('grans tenidors' in Catalan) and will lose their tax privileges.

Additionally, 30% of all new homes would have to be made into social housing, of which half would have to have low 'social' rents, and it would allow local councils to raise property taxes on empty houses and apartments. 

Catalonia's rent cap law

The Spanish bill — and whether it becomes law — will be followed closely from Catalonia, whose issues are at the heart of Spain's housing crisis. 

A contentious rent cap law in municipalities with "tense housing markets" was approved by the Catalan parliament in September 2020 that banned landlords from raising the cost of homes that had been rented out below the Average Price Index in the past five years and set new contract prices according to it. 

In June, months after the People's Party lodged an appeal, the Spanish government announced that it too would challenge the law's constitutionality in Spain's Constitutional Court, but did not ask the court to put the measure on hold until it issues a ruling. 

Listen below to the Filling the Sink podcast episode on Catalonia's housing crisis that was released on June 26.