At last the Government has pre-approved a law proposal (PDF-Spanish) to encourage property owners to rent out their properties. Even though property sales have slowed down substantially, the property rental market is not increasing, and a staggering 2.8 million properties in Spain remain empty. 

The proposed changes will mainly target the excessive length of proceedings (which in some instances can take up to 12 months) to enforce an eviction process. Below is a summary of the main law changes to be approved in due course:

• Notice of payment prior to going to Court is reduced from 2 months to 1.
• The Court proceedings are now conducted via an equivalent to a small claims court procedure and are therefore a ruling can be reached in a couple of months (depending on the specific Court).
• The Court ruling will now be enough to evict a tenant and will be enforced within 30 days, without having to execute the ruling (whereas before the ruling was not automatically enforceable as the landlord had to instigate this action). If the tenant cannot be found the ruling will be notified in the notice board which each Court has and will proceed to send the bailiffs.
• Landlords will be able to demand return of the property if they need it not only for their own use but for that of parents and children. This clause will have to be inserted into the contract in order to be enforceable.

It will be interesting to see how these measures, in addition to others, bring dynamism to an otherwise stagnant market and, more importantly, if the court system will be able to cope with the expectations these changes will introduce.