151–160 of 930 posts
There is no such "okupas problem" in Spain. If someone enter your dwelling (don't really know if is the correct term in English. In Spanish the house where you actually live is called "morada"), you can call the police and they will evict whoever is in the house in less than 24 hours. Other topic is holiday residences; those are not dwelling ("morada") so, in Spain, the right to have a dwelling is on the top of priva…
I invest in real estate in Spain and this is not true.
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In germany, if you see such a abandoned property, you cannot even ask the authority who owns it, if you have the plans to buy it (you would have to rely on local people knowing and telling you). There are quite some neglected properties around here and the owners are away, do not care anymore and the authorities do not care as long as the low property taxes are paid. There was a case close by, where a buisness wanted…
The solution is actually simpler, set a property tax that would hurt if the buildings became vacant. For example if you pay 1% of the buildings value as property tax each year, it would make enough incentive to rent it out or sell if you don't need it. The proceeds can be used for building public housing projects or helping the homeless. Property tax was invented for this very reason.
"pay 1% of the buildings value as property tax each year"
A old rotten building might be worth just 10000€. And 100 € a year ain't that much. One would have to tax the property - and who will set up the rates in a fair way in a process that is not vulnerable to corruption?
I mean from a justice standpoint, squatting is wrong But from a societal standpoint, the laws being this way have a bunch of positive externalities 1. It provides shelter to the homeless, with all the advantages we know that has 2. It provides an incentive to not leave property vacant. Very important in a country with high vacancy rates 1nd a hiusing crisis. Note also that this is done at the expense of investors. Wh…
Are those the evil investors who should be punished? Now they are homeless instead
> Spanish law provides for an immediate eviction procedure that can be enacted within 48 hours of illegal occupation
So if I understand properly, if you go away for the weekend and forget to close a window, you might find squatters in your house when you come back, and you can't quickly get them out in a legal way?
"The rise of okupation"... but they make no references to data. Here is the data (in Spanish) [1]. The difference between trespassing (that somebody enters in the house you live) and usurpation (the house is yours but is not where you live) is very important. Both problems are way less prevalent than what appears on the media (see [1]), but trespassing is waaay lower (and as the owner you have better mechanisms to re…
In the end there are two other big ways of dealing with it: paying the okupas to leave, or paying desokupados to get them out, where both of those ways would not be registered in those statistics.
Not exactly related to the article itself, but it seems to me to be heavily AI-edited, with a lot of unnecessary fluff, the kind that ChatGPT adds. Honestly it seems like the article could be shortened in half at least. And probably all those bold highlighted phrases were added by ChatGPT too. I have nothing against LLMs, I use them often, but this isn't a good example of using them.
I got something very similar by prompting ChatGPT-4o with “Write a five-paragraph news article in English about the rise of 'okupación' in Spain. Focus on the legal issues.”
One of those paragraphs: “The legal landscape surrounding ‘okupación’ is complex. Spanish law differentiates between two main types of property occupation: usurpation and trespassing. Usurpation, involving the illegal occupation of a property without violence, is often met with fines rather than immediate eviction, frustrating many property owners. Trespassing, on the other hand, which involves force or threats, is treated more severely but is harder to prove.”
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The solution is actually simpler, set a property tax that would hurt if the buildings became vacant. For example if you pay 1% of the buildings value as property tax each year, it would make enough incentive to rent it out or sell if you don't need it. The proceeds can be used for building public housing projects or helping the homeless. Property tax was invented for this very reason.
Something like this yes. But the devil will be in the details. "pay 1% of the buildings value as property tax each year" A old rotten building might be worth just 10000€. And 100 € a year ain't that much. One would have to tax the property - and who will set up the rates in a fair way in a process that is not vulnerable to corruption?
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This problem will only grow because there's an increasingly large number of people in Spain unable to rent. At this very moment the profile of squatters is diverse, but with such large pockets of spaniards staying just above of the poverty line, many people will be forced between squatting or just become homeless. Just for reference, I live in a flat in a building from the 50s. Very poor insulation, 5º with no elevat…
> Can anyone tell me how is exactly this going to work out? Not to mention all the "expats" and "digital nomads" that are willing to pay whatever the landlord says because they really really want to live here without thinking about the consequences, but that's another story. Slowly, more regulation is added to get the problem somewhat under control. Rents capped by index, annual rent increases cap, introduction of "t…
What does help: increase the supply. Make it easier to build or let houses by reducing bureaucracy, invest in housing projects etc.
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In reality most cases of squatting are financial assets that property owners have no plan to rent to anyone. In an area where housing space that people can afford are very few and far between, nbuying properties for the sole purpose of speculation can be seen on a similar level of unethicality as occupying a space you don't own.
Absolute nonsense. Why would a "speculator" refuse to rent out their property and make a profit out of it?
"The rise of okupation"... but they make no references to data. Here is the data (in Spanish) [1]. The difference between trespassing (that somebody enters in the house you live) and usurpation (the house is yours but is not where you live) is very important. Both problems are way less prevalent than what appears on the media (see [1]), but trespassing is waaay lower (and as the owner you have better mechanisms to re…
Not everyone who gets this problem sues the okupas, since as it says this is a many-year complex legal process. I personally know multiple people who have had this problem, which suggest that it is probably MORE widespread than the data shows. In the end there are two other big ways of dealing with it: paying the okupas to leave, or paying desokupados to get them out, where both of those ways would not be registered…