Barcelona will study prohibiting the speculative buying of apartments, a condition of BComú for the 2026 budget

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> The PSC municipal government is set to study whether it can ban the speculative purchase of apartments in Barcelona, a demand from BComú to Collboni to approve the municipal budget for 2026.

> The deputy mayor for Urban Planning, Laia Bonet, said at the October municipal plenary that the City Council’s technical teams will evaluate it “rigorously” because “this type of measure must be legally very solid to avoid being rejected by the courts.”

> For her part, the leader of BComú, Janet Sanz, has assured that “in six months Barcelona can ban speculative buying if there is political will” and has reiterated that “the legal framework allows us to do so”.

> The BComú proposal has moved forward with the votes of the PSC executive and also those of ERC, who have cast a “sceptical” vote because they say that “the City Council cannot apply the ban autonomously”.

> Changes in the law are needed

> In order to prohibit the speculative purchase of apartments in Barcelona and avoid cases like the one in the block on Carrer de la Concòrdia (in Poble-sec), the local authorities explain that “simple” urban planning is needed.

> However, the truth is that the rest of the administrations should also take steps in parallel, such as the Generalitat modifying the Urban Planning Law.

> The local authorities have already registered a bill in this regard, while the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, has also commissioned a legal report to verify the viability of the measure, which is already being applied in other European cities such as Amsterdam, according to the local authorities.

> Together, PP and Vox voted against the initiative. Among other things, they consider that the initiative “dynamites the market” and that more apartments need to be built to remedy the housing crisis.