Idealista Adds New Criteria in Conjunction with Catalan Rental Laws

In a move to work with new rules pushed onto the real estate market in Catalonia, idealista has added a new feature for advertisers that utilizes the rental rate data proposed by the Catalan government.

Due to the specifics of the rule and because not all municipalities in Catalan are part of this specific index and the inner workings of such an index have yet to be smoothed out, idealista has stated that it is “a classifieds portal, in which third-party users of the platform who have properties of all kinds, whether owned or managed, have the possibility to post and publish directly their own ads, and other third-party users, who wish to buy, lease or share said properties, can identify those that interest them the most, and contact advertisers to negotiate directly with them the terms and conditions of the transaction they intend to carry out, and of which the portal is not aware.”

“The platform is limited to hosting the content generated and published by users. Therefore, idealista is neither the owner of the real estate, nor does it manage or lease, and cannot be confused with those who advertise them, carrying out transactions outside the platform, directly between the interested parties. Its only function is to maintain a technically active web page (virtual space), in such a way as to allow those third-party users to get in touch. The activity that it develops is not, therefore, that of an agent that intervenes in the provision of real estate services but that of a mere electronic intermediary, who acts through its platform.

“It is clear, therefore, that compliance with the obligations provided for in DL 17/2019 and in Law 11/2020 corresponds, directly, to the advertisers of the platform (to the extent that their properties are located within of its scope of application) and not idealista per se, insofar as it operates as a service provider of the information society, whose responsibility is limited to the provisions of the LSSI.”