Spain could soon be able to ban the purchase of second homes in areas considered to be under intense housing pressure.

It comes after the EU unveiled plans to give local councils greater powers over property regulations, including restricting tourist flats.

The European Commission’s draft Affordable Housing Act is designed to grant greater freedom to battle soaring property prices and shortages of permanent homes.

Under the proposed framework, authorities would first have to demonstrate that an area meets strict criteria to qualify as an ‘area under housing stress’.

One of the policies included in the draft is restricting the acquisition or use of property or land that is not intended to serve as someone’s main home.

However councils would have to show that less restrictive measures would not be equally effective.

The draft specifically states that governments should consider alternatives to outright bans.

Any intervention would also have to be geographically limited to the housing-stress area concerned and ‘proportionate to the problem it was intended to solve’.

Measures would have to be reviewed at least every five years and withdrawn immediately if the conditions that justified them no longer existed.

Tourist apartments

The proposal would also allow authorities to impose restrictions on access to, or the provision of, short-term accommodation services in properties that are not someone’s habitual residence.

That could potentially strengthen the hand of Spanish councils attempting to curb the number of tourist apartments in neighbourhoods where authorities believe holiday accommodation is reducing the supply of permanent homes.

However, the proposal specifically excludes people occasionally renting out their own main residence, on the basis that doing so does not remove an additional property from the residential housing stock.

Restrictions would also need to be targeted towards forms of short-term letting most likely to reduce the supply of homes for permanent residents.

Which areas could qualify?

The Commission’s proposal sets out three cumulative tests for designating an ‘area under housing stress’, adding that they would all need to be met for an area to qualify.

Firstly, the local house-price-to-income ratio would need to be eight or higher – effectively meaning the price of a home is equivalent to at least eight years of household income.

Secondly, that ratio must have increased over the previous 10 years.

And thirdly, population pressures would have to significantly exceed the available housing supply.

The geographical designation could potentially cover anything from an individual neighbourhood or municipality to a metropolitan area or tourism destination, although its boundaries would have to be limited to what is necessary to protect housing affordability.

Spain welcomes proposals

Spain’s Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez has welcomed the proposals, claiming they have been heavily influenced by policies already pursued by Pedro Sanchez’s government.

She pointed to the similarities between Spain’s existing concept of zonas de mercado tensionado, or stressed housing-market areas, and the Commission’s proposed ‘areas under housing stress’.

Rodriguez also welcomed the focus on tourist accommodation, arguing that such properties are harming coexistence in some cities and making it more difficult for families and young people to access housing.

She said the Commission’s proposal made clear that residential use should be prioritised.

The proposal must be passed through the EU’s legislative process before becoming law.