Tenants' Union announces 'rent strike': 'The keys revolution begins'

After the massive housing demonstration in Barcelona last month, with over 170,000 participants, the Tenants' Union has delivered on its promise of direct action. 

On Wednesday, the union announced the launch of the long-threatened rent strike.  "The revolution of the keys has begun," said Enric Aragonès, spokesperson for the union.

The first rent strikes are already underway. In Salou, a coastal town in southern Catalonia, 23 families living in two social housing blocks managed by La Caixa bank have begun withholding payments.

Since Monday, 62% of tenants in these blocks have refused to pay the last two months of rent.

Meanwhile, in Sentmenat, a town near Barcelona, renters from another housing block are set to join the strike starting March 1.

These actions mark the "first steps of the rent strike." Aragonès justified the move by citing "abusive clauses" in social housing contracts.

The legal debate over a rent strike

Law professor at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, Jordi Bonshoms, believes “all the ingredients” for a rent strike to take off are in place in Barcelona right now, due to widespread difficulty in finding housing and affordable housing. 

He believes that such an action could be useful as a “political exercise” to bring attention to the topic, rather than as a "general strike" in which the entire population could join.

“In the beginning, it would be in an apartment block against a specific owner, against an investment fund that is increasing the rent, or putting in abusive clauses, or harassing the tenants,” he posits.

Bonshoms believes that this idea could be "the most effective first step" of neighborhood cooperation. "If the tenants say enough and consider doing something, this can be a rent strike," he adds.

Assuming that the property owner decides to file a lawsuit for non-payment, Bonshoms assures that the tenants "could defend themselves," despite the fact that the rent strike is not currently a recognized right.

"If there is a sustained grievance over time, a rent strike has ways, under specific conditions, to defend itself," he argues.

Meanwhile, Maridalia Rodríguez, an expert in real estate law and professor at Pompeu Fabra University, points out that stopping paying rent as a protest measure "is not a right."

Instead, she views such an idea as a mass call to breach contracts, which may ultimately lead to eviction.

To learn more about the housing crisis in Catalonia, the demands of the Tenants' Union, and the legal debate over a rent strike, listen to this episode of our podcast Filling the Sink.