The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, threatened this Tuesday to take the new housing decrees approved by the Government to court. She assured that she will use "all legal instruments" at her disposal to preserve private property if the norms are validated by the Congress's Permanent Deputation. The announcement comes five days after the Plenary rejected the previous texts with the votes of the PP, the far-right Vox, and Junts.
Ayuso spoke before businessmen gathered at the XXIX National Congress of Family Business. There, she called the Executive's decision to submit the decrees to the Permanent Deputation, the body that maintains parliamentary activity after the dissolution of the Cortes, a "trap." According to the president, resorting to that path would mean acting behind the back of Congress and the Constitution. She has not yet specified what she would challenge or before which court.
The Constitution, however, expressly attributes to the Permanent Deputation the functions of Congress regarding decree-laws when the Chamber is dissolved. The Chamber's Regulations establish that it can debate and vote on their validation or repeal. This competence does not resolve in advance any possible controversy about the content of the measures, but it refutes that taking the texts to that body is, by itself, a procedure alien to the Constitution.
Ayuso places property at the center of the clash
The Council of Ministers recovered this Tuesday two decrees with 21 housing measures and some changes compared to those rejected on Friday. The main one includes protection against certain evictions of vulnerable people without housing alternatives, an extraordinary extension for rental contracts, rules against fraud in seasonal and room rentals, and limits on certain speculative housing purchases. It also incorporates loans to facilitate the purchase of a first home and financing to expand the affordable offer. The second text addresses the automatic renewal of rental contracts.
Ayuso has defended that housing is "the piggy bank" of the middle classes and has accused the Government of promoting a "class struggle". Her intervention has presented tenant protection measures as a threat to homeowners, although the package also includes tax incentives for landlords who reduce rent and mechanisms to support construction. The president has even called for the "communist hood" to disappear from Spain.
The invocation of the Constitution deserves attention to its two articles on this matter. Article 33 recognizes private property and states that its social function delimits its content. Article 47 entrusts public authorities with promoting the necessary conditions to make effective the right to decent housing and prevent speculation. Any appeal must discuss the specific measures and their legal limits.
The figure of protected housing that also does not support her discourse
Ayuso's offensive coincides with a new verification of the results she uses to defend her management. On Monday, she stated that in Madrid, half of Spain's public protected housing is built. According to data on completed protected housing reviewed by 'Newtral', the region represented 29.6% of the total in 2025 and 21.6% in the first quarter of 2026. The president's statement takes as reference a proportion that does not correspond to the latest available periods. Furthermore, completed protected housing and publicly owned administrative housing are distinct concepts.
The vote on the new decrees will also have two predictably different results. The Basque Nationalist Party confirmed this afternoon that it will support the main text, with measures against evictions and speculation, and that it will reject the second, dedicated to the automatic renewal of rents. The composition of the Permanent Deputation gives the first decree a majority that the Government did not achieve on Friday in the Plenary.
Ayuso has already announced her intention to legally challenge this validation if it occurs. She will then have to identify the specific reason for the appeal. The power of the Permanent Deputation to vote on decree-laws is enshrined in the very Constitution that the president claims to defend.
