Covid-19 coronavirus: rent deferrals in commercial and industrial lease agreements in Spain
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Following the approval of rent deferrals for residential lease agreements due to Covid-19 outbreak in March, the Spanish Government has now approved on 21 April 2020, the Royal Decree-law 15/2020 regulating, among others, certain measures on deferral of rent in commercial and industrial lease agreements (RDL 15/2020).
The rent deferral measures included in RDL 15/2020 can be summarised as follows:
- Moratorium on rent payments applying to institutional landlords | Applicable to public entities, legal entities or "institutional property owners" (grandes tenedoras), defined as companies or individuals owning, at least, (a) 10 urban properties in Spain (excluding parking spaces and storages) or (b) property(ies) with a constructed surface exceeding 1,500 sq. m.
- Moratorium on rent payments applying to other landlords | Applicable to landlords different from those set out in previous section above
RDL 15/2020 states that the tenants that are eligible to request the application of the abovementioned measures are: Self-employed individuals ("autónomos") and Small and medium enterprises meeting following requirements described in this publication.
Compliance with the requirements applicable in order to request the moratorium will have to be proven by the tenant by submitting the following documentation to the landlord:
- a statement whereby the tenant declares the 75% reduction of its billing. In any case, if the landlord so requests, the tenant shall provide its accounting books in order to prove the reduction of the activity.
- the suspension of activity will be accredited by means of a certificate issued by Tax Authority or the competent body of the relevant Regional Government, as the case may be, based on the declaration of cessation of activity filed by the tenant.
