The new Catalan regime for temporary letting and letting by rooms: evasion of the law, rent control and the limits of legislative competence

1.The issue: from “flight” from the LAU to the response of the Catalan legislature

The tension between the right to housing (art. 47 of the Spanish Constitution —the “Constitución Española”, CE—) and freedom of enterprise and of contract (arts. 33 and 38 CE) has shifted in recent years towards borderline contractual figures: seasonal tenancies, lettings by rooms, transfers of use, lodging contracts, among others. The common denominator is the attempt to avoid the protective regime governing principal-residence tenancies under Law 29/1994 on urban tenancies (the LAU), in particular as regards minimum duration, extensions and, more recently, rent control in stressed market areas.

Following the declaration that the Catalan rent-control regime of Law 11/2020 was unconstitutional because it encroached on the State's competence over civil law (STC 37/2022, a judgment of the “Tribunal Constitucional”, Spain's Constitutional Court), the Catalan legislature has opted for a different strategy: instead of setting rent caps directly, it redefines contractual categories and ties their classification to the application of the State rent-control rules, in particular arts. 17.6 and 17.7 LAU introduced by State Law 12/2023 of 24 May on the right to housing.

Catalan Law 11/2025, on housing and planning measures, extensively amends Law 18/2007 on the right to housing, introducing arts. 66 bis and 66 ter. Arts. 66 quater and 66 quinquies come from Catalan Law 11/2026 of 9 July, published on 13 July and in force, as a general rule, from 14 July. These provisions delimit the letting of a dwelling on a temporary basis, regulate the letting of rooms, extend the rent-control regime to rooms in stressed market areas and define “renta” (rent) and “contraprestación económica” (economic consideration), proscribing contractual structures used to circumvent them. The admission for consideration by the Constitutional Court of the “recurso de inconstitucionalidad” —the constitutional challenge— 2415-2026, directed against provisions of Law 11/2025 and not against the articles subsequently added by Law 11/2026, places the question at the centre of the academic debate on the limits of the competence of the “comunidades autónomas” —Spain's autonomous regions— in matters of housing and contract.

2.The new art. 66 bis: the “causa de temporalidad” as the pivot of classification

Art. 66 bis of Law 18/2007 starts from a strong premise: a tenancy is regarded as a permanent-dwelling tenancy where it is intended to meet a housing need, irrespective of its duration. Dwellings intended for recreational or tourist use or for a holiday season are excluded, and this must be expressly stated in the contract. This formulation is in line with the traditional case law on seasonal tenancies, which characterises them by the absence of any intention of permanence and by their serving incidental purposes (holidays, leisure, one-off activities) rather than a stable need for a residence. The civil case law has insisted that the essential feature of a seasonal tenancy is that the use is agreed not for the habitual residence but for transitory occupation for various reasons.

Paragraph 2 of art. 66 bis goes a step further: tenancies entered into on a temporary basis for professional, employment or study reasons, for medical care or treatment, for provisional situations while awaiting delivery of a dwelling or a return to the habitual residence, or for other analogous uses which are no different from meeting a housing need, are subject to the LAU rules on the deposit, guarantees, the setting and indexation of the rent, increases for improvement works and the allocation of general expenses and individualised services. Although formally they may be classified as tenancies for a use other than housing, in those respects the protective regime proper to a principal residence applies to them. The technique is clear: temporary tenancies “to meet a housing need” are functionally assimilated to permanent-dwelling tenancies, at least in the elements that matter to the policy of rent control and tenant protection.

Paragraph 3 requires that, in the situations covered by paragraph 2, the purpose of the contract be recorded together with documentary evidence of it, which must be lodged with the deposit in the relevant register. The provision also introduces a significant presumption: a tenancy is presumed to have a permanent-dwelling purpose if no use other than housing is evidenced in the relevant register. From the standpoint of contract law, the temporary purpose becomes a decisive element in the legal classification. The Civil Code presumes the existence and lawfulness of the cause of a contract unless the contrary is proved (art. 1277 CC), but stating a false cause may give rise to nullity if no other true and lawful cause is proved (art. 1276 CC). The requirement of documentary evidence and of lodging it in an administrative register strengthens the scope for checking the truth of the cause relied on.

In evidential terms, the presumption of a permanent dwelling shifts the burden of proof onto the landlord, and where appropriate the tenant, who seeks to maintain that the contract is temporary in nature. The absence of documentation in the register gives rise to a presumption that the dwelling is a permanent one, with the consequences that this has as regards minimum duration and extensions (arts. 9 and 10 LAU) and, where applicable, rent control (art. 17 LAU). The provision is not confined to an administrative classification: it directly conditions the application of the mandatory civil regime of the LAU.

Art. 66 bis also addresses the chaining of temporary contracts. Paragraph 5 provides that, where a temporary tenancy is extended on evidenced grounds but the tenant does not expressly evidence the temporary purpose and that his residence is elsewhere, the contract is regarded as governed by the urban tenancies legislation applicable to permanent dwellings, its full legal regime applying, including the minimum statutory duration and the rules on extensions, from the date of the initial contract. Paragraph 6 adds that, where the contract is not extended but a new contract is entered into with the same tenant and over the same dwelling, the new contract is subject to the rules on permanent-dwelling tenancies, unless the landlord duly evidences the continuation of the circumstances giving rise to the temporary need.

In practice the provision operates as an anti‑avoidance clause in the sense of art. 6.4 CC: acts carried out under cover of the wording of a rule, such as successive temporary contracts, which pursue a result prohibited by the legal order, such as avoiding the minimum duration and rent control, are regarded as performed in evasion of the law and do not prevent the application of the rule evaded. From the civil-law standpoint, the consequence is not the nullity of the contract but its reclassification ex lege as a permanent-dwelling tenancy, with application of the mandatory regime of the LAU (arts. 4, 9, 10 and 17). This raises questions as to the compatibility of such automatic reclassification with the State's competence to lay down the basic rules of contractual obligations (art. 149.1.8 CE), a matter addressed below.

3.Letting by rooms and the extension of rent control

Art. 66 ter defines a room tenancy as the contract by which the landlord grants the tenant exclusive use of a room and the right to use the rooms or common areas of the dwelling, in return for a price. Compliance is required with the standards of floor area per person and with the maximum occupancy threshold set by the sectoral housing legislation and by the “cédula de habitabilidad” —the certificate of habitability—, which links this figure to the habitability and health standards proper to housing law.

The most significant innovation lies in paragraph 3 of art. 66 ter, which provides that letting a dwelling by rooms, or any other kind of physical or contractual fragmentation, neither alters the nature of the contract as a tenancy of a dwelling nor avoids the application of the rules proper to it. Consequently, in dwellings located in stressed residential market areas, the sum of the rents agreed in several tenancies running at the same time may not exceed the maximum rent applicable to a single tenancy of the dwelling as a whole. The provision seeks to close off one route for circumventing rent control: fragmenting the contract into multiple room tenancies in order to exceed, taken together, the rent cap applicable to the dwelling as a whole.

This technique is reinforced by art. 66 quinquies, which defines “renta, precio o contraprestación económica” (rent, price or economic consideration) broadly, including sums treated as rent, general expenses, individualised services, charges, on-charged expenses and compulsory services. The provision expressly prohibits the use of transactions, agreements or contractual structures to circumvent the rent-control regime, and excludes certain items from being passed on to the tenant, such as property management fees or the costs of drawing up the contract, in tenancies subject to rent control. It is a general anti‑avoidance clause intended to prevent the “real” rent from being shifted into ancillary items in order to get around the statutory limits.

Art. 66 quater expressly extends the rent-control regime to any transaction conferring exclusive residential use of a room with a right to common areas, including tenancy, transfer of use, sub-letting or any equivalent arrangement. The deposit must be lodged and the contract details and the information on its purpose must be entered in the “Registro de fianzas”, the register of tenancy deposits. The interplay with State Law 12/2023 and with the LAU is decisive: in stressed residential market areas, the rent under tenancies of dwellings is limited by reference to the previous rent or to the reference price index, particularly where the landlord is a “gran tenedor”, a large-scale landlord. Art. 66 of Law 18/2007 requires contracts for dwellings located in stressed market areas to state the amount of the last rent or the maximum price resulting from the reference system, as well as whether the landlord is a large-scale landlord, the purpose of the contract and the certificate of habitability, the document evidencing the reference price having to be attached.

By requiring that the sum of the rents for rooms not exceed the maximum rent applicable to the dwelling as a single unit, the Catalan legislature does not set a new cap but refers back to the State limit already in existence for the dwelling as a whole, projecting it onto the aggregate of partial contracts. Extending the rent-control regime to rooms and to equivalent transactions strengthens the effectiveness of State housing policy but, at the same time, introduces regional regulation of the economic structure of contracts which, until now, lay in a grey area between tenancies of dwellings and tenancies for a use other than housing.

4.The competence framework: housing, planning law and civil law

The “Estatuto de Autonomía de Cataluña” —Catalonia's Statute of Autonomy— confers on the Generalitat, Catalonia's regional government, exclusive competence in housing (art. 137 EAC), which includes setting the priorities and objectives of promotional activity and adopting measures to guarantee the right to housing, in both the public and the private sector. It also holds exclusive competence in planning and land-use planning (art. 149 EAC). Law 18/2007 was enacted precisely under those heads of competence, establishing a legal statute for housing which bears on the social function of property (art. 33.2 CE) and on the effectiveness of the right to housing (art. 47 CE).

The State, however, retains exclusive competence over civil law (art. 149.1.8 CE), which includes the basic rules of contractual obligations, and over the basic conditions of equality in the exercise of rights (art. 149.1.1 CE). STC 37/2022 has emphasised that the principle of freedom of contract (art. 1255 CC) and, in the field of urban tenancies, the freedom to set the rent (art. 17.1 LAU) are basic rules of contractual obligations that only the State legislature may modulate. Along the same lines, STC 118/2022 declared unconstitutional art. 4 of Catalan Decree‑Law 50/2020, which inserted a new paragraph 3 into art. 9 of Law 11/2020 on the allocation of general expenses and individual services, on the ground that it formed an inseparable part of the rent-control regime already annulled and therefore encroached on the State's competence under art. 149.1.8 CE.

The recent constitutional case law offers a nuanced picture. STC 93/2015 and STC 32/2018, on the Andalusian legislation on the social function of housing, accept that a regional legislature may define duties of effective use of a dwelling and establish a system of penalties, provided that it does not significantly interfere with State economic policy or redefine the essential content of the right to property. STC 16/2021, on Catalan Decree‑Law 17/2019, declares various provisions unconstitutional because they affected the right to property by means of a decree‑law (art. 86.1 CE), but does not go into the substance of their material compatibility with the Constitution, leaving open the possibility that similar measures may be adopted by a formal act of parliament. STC 25/2025, on Catalan Law 1/2022, upholds a coercive model for bringing empty dwellings into use, with formal demands, coercive fines, penalties, compulsory transfer of use and expropriation, as a development of the social function of property, provided that a “fair balance” between the general interest and individual utility is observed and that the State's competences over expropriation and valuation are respected. STC 64/2025, on Decree‑Law 3/2023 on tourist-use dwellings, endorses a restrictive planning regime, with prior licensing, quantitative limits and a five-year period for adapting existing tourist-use dwellings, as a legitimate exercise of regional competence in planning and housing, finding no unconstitutional interference with the right to property and no encroachment on the State's competence in economic matters.

Where regional legislation has sought to regulate essential elements of the tenancy contract directly, by contrast, such as the rent, the allocation of expenses or the procedural regime, the Court has been far stricter, as STC 37/2022 and STC 118/2022 show. The question, therefore, is whether the new arts. 66 bis, 66 ter, 66 quater and 66 quinquies fall within the orbit of regional competence in housing and planning or whether they encroach on State civil law.

5.Housing regulation or encroachment on State civil law?

The key lies in determining whether the new provisions of Law 18/2007 merely shape the social function of housing and regulate residential uses from the standpoint of housing and planning, or whether they regulate essential elements of the tenancy contract, encroaching on State civil law.

From the standpoint of regional competence, the distinction between a permanent dwelling and recreational or tourist uses, and the requirement to evidence the temporary purpose, form part of defining the content of the right of ownership over a dwelling and of its social function. Sectoral housing legislation may delimit the social function of a type of asset by imposing duties of effective use, of upkeep and of compliance with habitability standards. The presumption of a permanent dwelling and the reclassification of chained contracts as principal-residence tenancies respond to the need to prevent evasion of the law in the application of the LAU and of Law 12/2023, without altering the basic civil regime but rather conditioning the factual classification of the contract for the purposes of applying the State rules. Limiting the sum of the rents for rooms to the maximum rent for the dwelling as a single unit does not set a new cap but projects onto fragmented contractual structures the limit already laid down by the LAU and Law 12/2023 for the dwelling as a whole, preventing its circumvention through equivalent transactions, which fits with the anti‑avoidance clause of art. 66 quinquies.

From the standpoint of State competence, the automatic reclassification of chained temporary contracts as permanent-dwelling tenancies, with retroactive application of the minimum duration and of the extensions from the initial contract, bears directly on the bundle of rights of the landlord and on the configuration of the contractual relationship, going beyond a mere administrative classification. Extending the rent-control regime to rooms, even though it refers back to the cap for the dwelling as a single unit, affects the freedom to set the rent in contracts which, until now, fell outside the scope of the LAU or were regarded as tenancies for a use other than housing, which might be read as a regional modulation of art. 17.1 LAU. The broad definition of “renta” and the prohibition on passing certain expenses on to the tenant, such as property management fees or the costs of drawing up the contract, in matters of rent control recall the annulled provisions of Law 11/2020 and of Decree‑Law 50/2020, which the Court held to encroach on State competence.

The dividing line is therefore a very fine one. The admission of the constitutional challenge for consideration indicates that the Court regards the existence of a problem of competence as plausible, although the outcome is uncertain in the light of the recent evolution of its case law. The Court will have to decide whether Law 11/2025 merely shapes the social function of housing and prevents evasion of the law in the application of the LAU and of Law 12/2023, or whether it finds in it a regional regulation of the basic rules of contractual obligations.

6.The civil effects of a possible declaration of unconstitutionality

Should the Constitutional Court declare arts. 66 bis, 66 ter, 66 quater or 66 quinquies unconstitutional, in whole or in part, the question will arise of the effects on contracts entered into while they were in force. STC 37/2022, in annulling the rent-control regime of Law 11/2020, expressly modulated the effects of the nullity “pro futuro”, preserving settled legal situations: tenancies entered into while the law was in force were maintained on their terms, having regard to the principle of legal certainty (art. 9.3 CE). STC 118/2022 followed the same technique in respect of art. 4 of Decree‑Law 50/2020. It is reasonable to anticipate that, were unconstitutionality on grounds of competence to be found, the Court might opt for a similar solution, avoiding the mass rescission of contracts and the litigation that would come with it. That would not prevent the parties, however, from invoking the nullity of particular clauses contrary to mandatory State rules (art. 6.3 CC) in individual proceedings, especially where a significant imbalance were found.

If, for example, the presumption of a permanent dwelling or the automatic reclassification of chained contracts were declared unconstitutional, the question would be whether contracts entered into as “temporary” ones could continue to be treated as such or whether, on the contrary, their classification as permanent-dwelling tenancies would follow directly from the LAU and from the civil case law, independently of the regional provision. Academic commentary in the civil field has long taken the view that the classification of a tenancy as seasonal or as a principal-residence tenancy depends on the true purpose of the contract and on the conduct of the parties, beyond the label used. Art. 1282 CC requires regard to be had to the parties' contemporaneous and subsequent conduct in order to judge their intention. Even without art. 66 bis, therefore, the courts could continue to reclassify temporary contracts made in evasion of the law as principal-residence tenancies, applying the LAU and the Civil Code directly.

As regards rents received under room tenancies which, taken together, exceed the cap for the dwelling as a single unit, a possible finding that the rule in art. 66 ter.3 is unconstitutional would not automatically entail an obligation to restore sums paid, unless particular clauses were found null for contravening mandatory State rules or for abuse of rights (art. 7.2 CC). A possible nullity of the regional provision on grounds of competence does not of itself render the agreed rent unlawful, unless it is shown that it directly infringes State limits or that it has been arranged through contractual structures in evasion of the law.

7.Conclusions

Catalan Laws 11/2025 and 11/2026 have introduced a sophisticated regime for seasonal tenancies and letting by rooms, set out in the new arts. 66 bis and 66 ter —from the first— and 66 quater and 66 quinquies —from the second— of Law 18/2007. That regime seeks to draw a precise distinction between genuinely holiday or recreational tenancies and temporary tenancies for reasons connected with a housing need, to prevent evasion of the law through the chaining of temporary contracts and fragmentation into room tenancies, and to secure the effectiveness of rent control in stressed residential market areas by projecting the State limits onto complex contractual structures.

The notion of the “causa de temporalidad” becomes a central element in the classification of the contract, with a heavy evidential burden on the parties who seek to escape the permanent-dwelling regime. The presumption of a permanent dwelling in the absence of documentary evidence and the reclassification of chained contracts strengthen the tenant's position and the effectiveness of the LAU, but raise doubts as to their compatibility with the State's competence over civil law. In the field of letting by rooms, the rule preventing the sum of the rents from exceeding the maximum rent for the dwelling as a single unit, and the broad definition of “renta” and “contraprestación económica”, seek to close off routes for circumventing rent control, in line with the general anti‑avoidance clause of the Civil Code. The question is whether this projection of State limits onto room tenancies can be regarded as a mere housing and planning measure or whether it amounts to regional regulation of essential elements of the tenancy contract.

The recent constitutional case law offers arguments both ways. On the one hand, it has endorsed far-reaching measures for bringing empty dwellings into use and for the planning regulation of tourist-use dwellings as a development of the social function of property and of the right to housing. On the other, it has been very strict with regional rules that have sought to set rent caps directly or to regulate the allocation of expenses in tenancy contracts, on the ground that they encroach on the State's competence under art. 149.1.8 CE. The admission for consideration of the constitutional challenge against the provisions examined here places the debate at the very centre of current academic attention. The outcome will depend on whether the Court considers that Law 11/2025 merely shapes the social function of housing and prevents evasion of the law in the application of the LAU and of Law 12/2023, or whether it finds in it a regional regulation of the basic rules of contractual obligations.

In any event, it is to be expected that, if unconstitutionality on grounds of competence were declared, the Court would modulate the effects of the nullity “pro futuro”, preserving contracts entered into while the law was in force out of regard for legal certainty, as it has already done in recent precedents. That will not prevent the civil courts from continuing to apply the LAU and the Civil Code directly in order to reclassify contracts made in evasion of the law and to review clauses that are unfair or contrary to mandatory rules. In the meantime, legal practitioners and courts will have to work with a complex regulatory framework, in which the classification of seasonal and room tenancies in Catalonia will require careful analysis of the temporary purpose, of the documentation provided, of the chaining of contracts and of whether the dwelling is located in a stressed residential market area, with constant attention to developments in the constitutional and civil case law.

Alburquerque Abogados|Patricia López|Barcelona 21/07/2026

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