2023-08-30 02:07:04
In a meeting charged with tension, the Senate opened on Tuesday the treatment of the reform of the Rental Law, which last week managed to approve the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies. The ruling party rejects the initiative and anticipated that it would seek to modify it. Together for Change wanted to advance with an opinion to be able to take her to the venue, but she does not have a majority and accused Kirchnerism of delaying the discussion.
The project began to be debated in a plenary session of the General Legislation and Budget and Finance commissions of the Upper House. The opposition could achieve a majority in General Legislation, but the ruling party controls the Budget, and has the numbers to block the possibility of ruling. That’s how it was and the plenary went to the fourth intermission.
Also read: Rentals: prices have increased 114% so far this year and a studio apartment exceeds $150,000 per month
“The half sanction that comes from Deputies has a vision that is difficult to follow, which poses a situation of equality between owner and tenant that does not exist. You have to listen to all parties to issue an opinion, you also have to listen to the tenants”, said Juliana Di Tullio, one of the senators closest to Cristina Kirchner.
“We discussed a couple of weeks. I don’t see any solution in this half penalty, it won’t solve any problem. Let’s do things right,” she added.
Plenary session of the General Legislation and Budget and Treasury commissions of the Senate to discuss the amendment to the rental law. Photo NA: JUAN VARGAS
The debate on the norm took months in the Deputies, with dozens of guests and exhibitors, and more than a whole year to be dealt with in the venue since the commission’s opinion was obtained. If it received modifications and reached the Senate premises, it would have to return to the Lower House.
Senator K starred in a tough clash with one of the PRO leaders in the Upper House, Guadalupe Tagliaferri.
“We cannot continue prolonging the anguish of 8 million Argentines any longer. They are specialists in dealing with issues in two minutes and dispatching opinions. Do not come to us with the story that they want to continue debating it, they have no intention of approving it ”, Tagliaferrri launched.
“So let’s not waste people’s time, let’s not cause them more anguish, say ‘we don’t want to deal with it, we want to delay it, we want it to return to deputies.’ There are 8 million Argentines waiting for an opinion to treat it in the compound in a few weeks. Don’t lie,” concluded the PRO senator.
Then, Di Tullio returned to the charge and accused the Buenos Aires government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta of having “sold an entire city to do real estate business” and blamed the opposition for the problems that tenants find to find properties.
On Wednesday of last week, most of the united opposition in Deputies managed to approve a reform of the Rental Law that would reduce the minimum term of contracts from 3 to 2 years. The updating of the values, which until now was every year, could be carried out within a period of between four and twelve months, based on a mechanism agreed between the parties, chosen between the consumer price index (CPI), the wholesale prices (IPM) and/or the wage index (IS), prepared by INDEC or a combination of them.
“We agree on the urgency of the treatment, I don’t know why they repeat the opposite. At no time from our block did we say that it was not urgent. As soon as the half sanction of Deputies arrived, we called the commission. The difference is not in the urgency, but in the content of the project,” said Anabel Fernández Sagasti, another of the senators close to the Vice President.
“We do not agree with the project that comes from Deputies. It already came without a broad consensus from the Chamber of Deputies. We have decided to continue working to reach a greater consensus. If this week or next week we get that consensus, that would be great,” he added.
After more than a year of debate, the opposition managed to put together the numbers to approve the reform of the Rent Law in Deputies and send it to the Senate (Photo: Chamber of Deputies).
The ruling party was willing to continue the debate this Thursday. But there can hardly be an agreement, considering that Kirchnerism rejects precisely the two main points of the reform that the opposition achieved in Deputies and that it now defends in the Senate: the term of the contract and the time and mechanism of the updates.
The JxC senators recognized that the reform will not solve the problem of tenants in an inflationary context, and that rental values will continue at very high levels, but they ensure that it would at least provide some certainty for supply to grow.
“In this moment of inflationary uncertainty, of the price of the dollar, of lack of access to credit, is the law going to solve it? No. But, if on top of that we leave the reform in limbo, we are going to put a bigger problem on all those who are in the process of renting or renting out a property”, warned Martín Lousteau, leader of Evolución Radical.
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