The main objective of the new Law 12/2023 on the Right to Housing, which entered into force on 24 May, is to guarantee the protection of tenants against landlords, and to this end it includes measures such as the limitation of the rental price, the promotion of social housing or the extension of the duration of the contract in areas where the housing market is under stress.
Another novelty of Law 12/2023 is that Chapter 4 regulates the right to information in favour of those interested in buying or renting a home, before formalising the transaction and before paying any deposit.
This duty to provide information applies to all actors in the real estate sector, whether acting on their own behalf or on behalf of others; in other words, developers, owners, real estate agents and property managers are obliged to provide this information to the client.
While it is true that in practice information such as the identification of the seller, the installations of the property, the certificate of energetic efficiency or the surface area of the property were already required, the new law explicitly mentions the obligation of all intermediaries to provide the following information to the client:
- Identification of the seller or landlord.
- The total price of the transaction and the items included in it.
- Essential characteristics of the property and the building, such as the certificate of habitability, surface areas, age and renovations, installations, energy efficiency certificate, accessibility and occupancy status.
- Registry identification of the property, charges, encumbrances and affectations.
- In the case of buildings with official architectural protection, information on the level of protection and restrictions must be provided.
In addition to all of the above, the new law stipulates that the client must be provided with “any other information that may be relevant, including aspects of a territorial, urban, physical-technical, heritage protection or administrative nature related to the same”.
Another power introduced in the regulation is that the client may request information on the presence of hazardous or noxious substances.
How should this information be provided to the client?
The information provided by intermediaries must be complete, objective, truthful, clear, comprehensible and accessible in accordance with the provisions of the law and, in relation to advertising, the law expressly prohibits any advertising with insufficient, inadequate or misleading information.
