El blog de Maria

Contract period

The contract period can be freely established by the parties.

But, be VERY CAREFUL: There are very important differences in the rules about contract period depending on the temporary or permanent use of the house. 

Actually, the possibility for you, as a landlord, to have a permanent tenant in your house for 5,8 years depends on one simple word: VIVIENDA.

Or, if matter is seen by the other side, if you are a tenant and want to stay that long, due to family needs of permanent dwelling, this permanency also depends on the same word: VIVIENDA

I explain:

There are rules of automatic contract extensions which are applicable when you rent a house as permanent dwelling. These automatic extensions of the Urban Renting Act (URA) are not applicable to temporary lettings. This kind of temporary lettings are not under the URA but subject to the will of the parties which has been freely stated in the contract and, subsidiarily to the Civil Code and its imperative rules and there is no automatic extensions here.

Permanent:  Automatic extensions for 5 years-3 years.

Temporary: NO automatic extensions.

The exclusion of this kind of contracts from the URA is because this contract does not protect the tenant rights to a permanent residence, but is referred to the house rented by someone who already has a permanent residence house  and just makes this contract for  leisure or vacation necessities.   

Reiterated Court Decisions state that we are before this kind of lettings if the house is rented for vacations, weekends, feast days… and with no pretension of covering the need of a permanent residence of the tenant. Therefore, the temporary character of the use: VIVIENDA OR NOT VIVIENDA is the key to differentiate one from another.

Malaga. Cathedral gardens by Cisco G at Flickr.com