The question of the title is not at all a trivial matter, since only an affirmative answer will allow the person who uses a rented room to enjoy the benefits granted to the tenant by the Urban Leasing Law, for example, the power to terminate the contract at six months or the right to extend the rent up to three years.

However, the Provincial Court of Ciudad Real in its judgment of September 14, two thousand and seventeen, opted for the negative response.

Let's see the background:

Rental contract for three months without extension of a room of the house of the lessor, with additional right to the use of common elements such as hall, kitchen, living room, bathroom terrace, laundry and patio.

Once the agreed term has expired, the landlady requests the eviction due to the expiration of that period.

The court of first instance dismisses the claim considering that the contract was not extinguished on July 1, 2016, but extended.

The Provincial Court, as has been said, upholds the appeal of the landlady and declares that the lease was extinguished by expiration of the agreed period and condemns the tenant to vacate the house with warning of eviction.

The Audiencia considers that we are not faced with a housing lease agreement, but exclusively a housing agreement, the main issue being discussed, which is the legal nature of the aforementioned contract and, more specifically, whether the special rules on the subject are applicable to it. of urban leases of the 1994 Law or, on the contrary, is regulated by the Civil Code.

We have to start from what is established in art. 2 of the LAU that defines the lease of housing as that lease that falls on a habitable building whose primary purpose is to satisfy the permanent need for housing of the tenant, being essential, to resolve the question raised, the realization of the term of habitability of the object leased in the specific case that concerns us.

A building will be habitable when it is adequate to serve the needs of dwelling or residence, where the person or family develops the privacy of their existence, constituting their home, without this concept being properly transferable to a room or dependency that is part of a house, object of the contract signed between the parties, since it lacks the minimum and essential services (bathroom, kitchen, ...), and that are only supplied by the concession of the right to use in a shared way, not exclusively, other dependencies that the remaining occupants of the dwelling simultaneously serve.

Since the LAU addresses the various legal issues that arise in relation to the rental of housing, it should lead to the conclusion that, if in the spirit of the law had been contemplated the partial rental of housing, the logical thing would have been that would have contemplated any rule regarding the lease of a part of the house is affected by the lease.

Therefore the lease of a room can not be considered subject to the special urban lease law, but to the general regime of the Civil Code.