Andalusia has approved a new regional housing framework through Ley 5/2025, de Vivienda de Andalucía, which entered into force in January 2026. This law replaces and consolidates earlier regional housing rules and introduces new instruments affecting housing planning, rehabilitation, market regulation, illegal occupation, and real estate intermediation.
Its scope is structural rather than temporary. It does not impose rent caps or alter national eviction procedures, but it significantly reshapes how housing policy is managed at regional and municipal level.
Purpose and Scope of the Law
The law establishes the legal framework for Andalusian housing policy with four core objectives:
- Guarantee the right to adequate housing
- Increase housing supply, particularly protected and affordable housing
- Improve the functioning and transparency of the residential market
- Prevent misuse of housing, including illegal occupation and overcrowding
It applies to all residential housing located in Andalusia, whether public or private, and affects owners, tenants, developers, municipalities, and real estate professionals.
Housing Planning and Public-Private Collaboration
Municipal and regional planning obligations
The law reinforces housing planning at both regional and local level. Municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, coastal municipalities, and those forming part of urban agglomerations must adopt Municipal Housing and Land Plans aligned with the Andalusian Housing and Land Plan.
These plans must analyse demand, available land, existing stock, and rehabilitation needs.
Public-private collaboration
Ley 5/2025 expressly promotes collaboration between public authorities and private operators for the development of protected or affordable housing. The law allows:
- Administrative concessions
- Rights of surface
- Other public-law formulas compatible with land classification
These mechanisms apply particularly to public land, and ownership may revert to the public authority once the concession period ends.
Priority Housing Areas (Áreas Prioritarias de Vivienda)
The law introduces Priority Housing Areas as a key supply-side instrument.
These are areas declared by the regional housing authority where there is:
- High housing demand
- Difficulty accessing housing
- Need for rehabilitation or renewal
Once declared, these areas receive priority access to housing programmes, subsidies, and public intervention.
Increased density for protected housing
In Priority Housing Areas, municipalities may authorise:
- An increase of up to 20% in the number of dwellings
- An increase of up to 10% in buildability
This applies only when the additional housing is protected housing, and it can be done without modifying the urban planning instruments, provided that licence applications are submitted within the time limits set in the declaration.
Rehabilitation, Accessibility and Energy Efficiency
The law facilitates refurbishment of existing residential buildings.
Urban planning instruments and municipal ordinances may allow that:
- Built surface required to improve energy efficiency, habitability, or accessibility
- Does not count towards the maximum buildability of the plot
This enables works such as lifts, insulation, redistribution of internal layouts, or external elements needed to meet current standards, subject to planning compatibility.
Measures Against Illegal Occupation
Ley 5/2025 does not modify criminal law or eviction procedures, which remain governed by national legislation. Its focus is administrative and social.
Support for affected owners
Public administrations must provide information and advisory services to owners whose homes have been illegally occupied, through regional and municipal housing services.
Exclusion from public housing
The law establishes that individuals cannot be allocated public or social housing if, in the previous five years:
- They have been convicted by a final judgment of:
- Illegal entry into a dwelling (allanamiento de morada), or
- Illegal occupation (usurpación), or
- They have been subject to a final administrative eviction order from public housing in the same municipality
This is an administrative eligibility rule, not a criminal sanction.
Coordination and prevention
The law creates a regional information and advisory system for evictions and illegal occupation, and allows municipalities to establish dedicated advisory units. The focus is on prevention, coordination, and lawful rehousing solutions where applicable.
Overcrowding Defined as Improper Use of Housing
For the first time in Andalusian law, overcrowding is expressly classified as improper use of housing.
A dwelling is considered overcrowded when:
- The number of occupants exceeds what is acceptable given the surface area, room size, and habitability conditions
- This creates risks to health, safety, or neighbourhood coexistence
Public authorities may apply:
- Corrective measures
- Sanctions
- Restitution orders
Access to a dwelling for inspection requires legal authorisation where constitutionally required.
Rental Deposits: End of the Regional Deposit Obligation
From 24 January 2026, Andalusia is no longer the depositary administration for rental security deposits.
Key points:
- The obligation to pay a deposit under the national Urban Leases Act remains unchanged
- What disappears is the requirement to lodge that deposit with the Andalusian administration
- Deposits previously lodged will be returned once the contract ends and upon request
This change reduces administrative burden for landlords but does not affect tenant protections under national law.
Mandatory Register of Real Estate Agents
Legal creation of the Register
Ley 5/2025 creates the Register of Residential Real Estate Agents of Andalusia, which is:
- Public
- Administrative
- Free of charge
- Mandatory
Registration will be a legal requirement to operate as a residential real estate agent in Andalusia.
Entry requirements
To register, agents must meet minimum conditions, including:
- Professional qualification through:
- Official API title, or
- Relevant university degree, or
- At least four years of documented experience
- Recognised training in residential intermediation
- Financial solvency
- Civil liability insurance or financial guarantees
- No criminal convictions related to professional activity
Registration is based on a responsible declaration, subject to verification.
Implementation timeline
Although the Register is legally created, the law grants the regional government up to two years from entry into force to regulate and activate it.
Until the Register is operational, registration cannot yet be enforced in practice.
What This Law Does Not Do
Ley 5/2025 does not:
- Introduce rent caps or rent-increase limits
- Modify national eviction procedures
- Criminalise occupation beyond existing national law
- Automatically legalise unlicensed housing
Its role is structural and administrative, not punitive.
What this means in practice for buyers and landlords
For buyers
For buyers, especially those looking at Andalusia as a medium or long-term base, Ley 5/2025 is primarily about future supply and market transparency, not immediate price intervention.
In practical terms:
- More protected and affordable housing is likely over time, particularly in areas officially declared as Priority Housing Areas. This does not affect existing private homes directly, but it may increase new-build activity and regeneration in high-demand zones.
- Urban areas with ageing housing stock may see more refurbishment and rehabilitation projects, as the law makes it easier to carry out energy-efficiency and accessibility upgrades without exhausting buildability limits.
- Greater transparency in the buying process is expected once the mandatory Register of Real Estate Agents becomes operational. Buyers will be able to verify that an agent meets minimum legal, insurance, and training standards.
- The law does not change national purchase taxes, buyer costs, or foreign ownership rules. Those remain governed by national legislation.
For buyers, the law is best understood as a medium-term structural reform, rather than something that immediately changes today’s purchase conditions.
For landlords
For landlords, the law has direct operational consequences, particularly for rentals and compliance.
Key practical points:
- Rental deposits no longer need to be lodged with the Andalusian administration for contracts signed from 24 January 2026 onward. Landlords still collect the deposit, but administrative filing at regional level is no longer required.
- Illegal occupation now has clearer administrative consequences. While eviction procedures remain national, tenants or occupants with prior convictions or administrative eviction orders may be excluded from access to public housing for five years.
- Overcrowding is explicitly classified as improper use of housing. Landlords who knowingly allow over-occupation may face administrative action if habitability standards are breached.
- Rehabilitation works are easier to justify. Improvements related to energy efficiency, habitability, or accessibility may be excluded from buildability calculations if local planning instruments allow it.
- Professionalisation of the rental market is coming. Once the Real Estate Agents Register is active, landlords using agents will increasingly be working with registered professionals subject to legal standards and insurance requirements.
For landlords, the law reduces some bureaucracy, increases clarity around misuse of housing, and raises the compliance bar for intermediaries.
