The Spanish government has published an online property check list for rental price range up to the maximum that should be charged for homes across most of Spain in an attempt to control rental prices and try and cool an overheated lettings market which has impacted Madrid and other large metropolitan areas.

The index is based on official registry data of landlords’ tax returns and has been designed as a price check tool for tenants to see if the price they are being charged a market price.

You can check your property HERE.

To be compulsorily applied by law, a regional government must first declare it has an area with overheated housing costs and present an action plan to try to solve the situation. Although, for now, few regions look likely to do this. In mid-March the index will be applied for the first time in parts of Catalonia that have been declared “a stressed area”.

The Housing Minister, David Lucas. called on more regions to declare overheated areas in order to control speculation, adding that in Madrid, for example, the difference between rents being asked on property websites compared to the figures on the new index are up to 60 per cent.

In overheated areas, the rental contracts of large landlords (owners of more than ten dwellings, or five if a region says so) and of homes that are just going on the rental market cannot have a price higher than that set by the reference index. Those restrictions will not apply to smaller landlords.

The government´s new housing law came into force in May 2023 establishing new rules for increasing rents, what can be charged to tenants and tax incentives for owners who put their property on the market in an attempt to deal with the recent spike in rents.

The FAI federation of real estate associations criticised the capping index, saying it will create “more fear among landlords, which will exacerbate the flight of landlords from the market and further reduce supply”.

The most recent survey showed that rents have reached an average of  €17 per square metre in Madrid and  €22 / sq.m in Barcelona.