A million homes and three laws within 100 days

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP leader and candidate for prime minister, presented his housing plan on Wednesday, 21 October, at an event in Seville alongside Juanma Moreno, president of the Andalusian regional government. He pledged to build one million homes, a target reported as more than a million in four years, and framed housing as the centrepiece of his campaign ahead of the general elections on 29 November. In his first 100 days in office, he said, the Council of Ministers would approve three bills: a reform of the Land Law, an anti-squatting law and a reform of the horizontal property law. Feijóo said these texts were already drafted and would not be improvised. The anti-squatting bill has been entrusted to Xavier García Albiol.

Feijóo tied the legislation to housing supply, which he presented as the main bottleneck.

“We need raw material.”

Interim tax breaks while homes are built

Feijóo acknowledged that the new housing will take years to arrive. He said that while the land is prepared and the buildings go up, the country would face difficult years. To ease rent pressure immediately, he proposed tax deductions for landlords and tenants who renew expiring leases for up to three years with rent increases below the consumer price index (IPC). Tenants would also receive a deduction tied to their income, with limits that were not specified. Landlords would get a tax cut, still undetailed, meant to make keeping a flat on the rental market worthwhile. He described the scheme as a tax-based contract.

“This is going to be a contract, a tax contract.”

Support for buyers under 40

Feijóo's package for people under 40 centres on help with buying a first home. He promised guarantees of up to 100% for mortgages, along with a 60% reduction in VAT and in the Impuesto de Transmisiones Patrimoniales, the transfer tax, for this age group. He also proposed a Hucha Hogar Joven, an account in which under-40s could deduct contributions and pay no tax on the returns. Young people entering the labour market would receive income-tax bonuses during their first four years of contributions. In his example, a 250,000 euro home bought after five years of work would save the buyer 25,000 euros in taxes and need a mortgage 50,000 euros smaller. He promised the largest aid in history for young people buying a home.

Licences, evictions and the dispute with Sánchez

To speed up construction, Feijóo proposed positive administrative silence: a municipality that does not grant a building licence within 90 days would be deemed to have granted it, with builders taking responsibility for building in line with the general urban plan. He said he would table this at the first meeting of the Conference of Presidents and would invite all public administrations, even though few of them belong to the Socialist party. On evictions, he promised that occupiers would be out within 48 hours. He accused Pedro Sánchez of using the drama of an octogenarian woman evicted from her flat, and said Sánchez had ignored a letter she sent about a year earlier.

Infrastructure and the campaign ahead

Moreno linked the housing problem to infrastructure and accused the Sánchez government of treating Andalusia very badly on rail projects. He said a change of national government was more urgent than ever. His central argument was that building is not enough without the transport network that makes new homes viable.

“We can build homes, but if there are no infrastructures, it will be hard to make those homes viable.”

The housing plan is the PP's main message in the precampaign, and the general elections are set for 29 November.