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Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#201

Post by rozularen »

Malcolmlisk wrote: post #169
eduardo_f wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invest in real estate in Spain and this is not true.

This is completely true, so if you work as a real estate investor, you need to check your knowledge and start studying or stop lying. If you try to squat (okupar) the house where someone lives, you'll be evicted just when the police arrives to your house. And you'll get a criminal sanction (allanamiento de morada). The problem comes when your third house is occupied by someone, since this is not where you live, then…

> This "problem" is just for people with a lot of houses, rentist, that are part of the problem. Or the banks and vulture funds, who had most of the houses and flats in spain.

And the squatting problem in spain is ridiculous small. THe percentage over the poblation is ridiculous. This that, in this article, don't mention at all.

This is a problem that *anyone* with more than 1 property might suffer. FTFY

It's unbelievable the way some people stretch it to defend squatters.

If it's not yours, you should not take it. Full pause.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#202

Post by misja111 »

diggan wrote: post #83
spaniard89277 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that helps honestly. What would help IMO is a lot of new housing close to jobs where foreigners can't apply. Because no matter how much you build, if someone from overseas is going to say "I pay double of whatever you've been offered" I can't compete. And I know that's happening because my Gf has to work with this sort of people, sadly.

> I don't think that helps honestly. What would help IMO is a lot of new housing close to jobs where foreigners can't apply. Because no matter how much you build, if someone from overseas is going to say "I pay double of whatever you've been offered" I can't compete. But if the law blocks "I pay double of whatever you've been offered" from happening (which is true today, they cannot increase the rent to whatever they…

You're correct, the competition wouldn't be on rent prices anymore. But since the shortage of houses is not solved, competition would just move to some other area.

E.g: which candidate does the landlord like the best, or who was on some waiting list for the most years, etc.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#203

Post by curtisblaine »

Malcolmlisk wrote: post #169
eduardo_f wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invest in real estate in Spain and this is not true.

This is completely true, so if you work as a real estate investor, you need to check your knowledge and start studying or stop lying. If you try to squat (okupar) the house where someone lives, you'll be evicted just when the police arrives to your house. And you'll get a criminal sanction (allanamiento de morada). The problem comes when your third house is occupied by someone, since this is not where you live, then…

> This "problem" is just for people with a lot of houses, rentist, that are part of the problem.

1) Is it illegal to have more than one house in Spain? 2) Do you pay proportionally more tax if you own more than one house in Spain?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#204

Post by x3ro »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #153
nephanth wrote: post #106

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…

A middle class family that leaves their home for 2 weeks to go on vacation only to come back to find their apartment occupied? Are those the evil investors who should be punished? Now they are homeless instead

What is it with people and their strawmen. Squatting has, historically, predominantly targeted empty buildings like luxury rentals, offices, factories, churches, etc. Please show me a single example of somebodies primary home being squatted and they becoming homeless as a result.

Sticking to Spain, there were about 17,000 squatting incidents (reported to the police) in 2021 [1]. I don't know about big cities in Spain, but e.g. in Berlin there are tens of thousands of squaremeters in unhoused space in form of offices and high-rent appartments. Do you really think people go to the homes people live in first?

[1]: https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion...

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#205

Post by dukeyukey »

pzo wrote: post #163
terminalcommand wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its probsbly hard to reliably enforce it since hard to figure out if bulding is occupied or not. You can have someone registered at the residency but still not live there. You could maybe try to figure out based on water usage but then someone could just leave water tap slightly leaking since water cost is not that expensive Probsbly squatters are those cheap solution that can enforce it in the most efficient way

Why does it matter if someone lives there or not? Slap a land value tax on it, high enough that if the owner doesn't make use of it they'll feel it.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#206

Post by dukeyukey »

quectophoton wrote: post #187
littlestymaar wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why? Because homelessness caused by artificial scarcity is violation of a basic human right, and a public order nightmare. Putting private property above other human rights is the root cause of so much problems in today's societies.

(Disclaimer: I don't own a house, and I'm not even earning minimum wage with my freelance work.) Question. If I owned a house, and went on a long vacation outside the country (e.g. because maybe I like travelling or something), how long would I be able to stay on vacation before the government yoinked my house due to it being empty?

Even if you're not in it, the house is full of your possessions. I'm not seeing how this is comparable to properties that have been actually empty for decades.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#207

Post by darkwater »

4ggr0 wrote: post #193
Malcolmlisk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government literally tells you what to eat and wear. And thank god... since without those laws we would eat the worst and toxic foods and wear toxic and low quality clothes.

> wear toxic and low quality clothes uhm...that might be a bad example. winks towards shein, temu, fast fashion in general and thinking for a bit longer - corn syrup/sugar in general is not toxic but it certainly is not that healthy either, and it's got big lobbies and large amounts of money behind it to influence the government.

Consider the worst case scenario and that, without regulations, it would be EVEN worse.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#208

Post by resolutebat »

lukan wrote: post #152
terminalcommand wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's why this scheme requires land tax, not property tax.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#209

Post by dukeyukey »

juststartguide wrote: post #200
victorbjorklund wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A middle class family that leaves their home for 2 weeks to go on vacation only to come back to find their apartment occupied? Are those the evil investors who should be punished? Now they are homeless instead

A common misconception that people don't seem to get (and that most news outlets conveniently forget to report), it's that if someone enters your primary or even second residence, that isn't considered Okupacion, it's considered "Allanamiento de morada" (breaking and entering). Even if you were on vacation for a month. If that happens you call the police and they'll kick them out in 24 hours max.

And that applies to a rental property that is the renters only home but the landlords 200th property?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#210

Post by southerntofu »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #168
spaniard89277 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are in IT earning only 20K EUR per year? That is unbelievable! Why is the housing crisis happening? What changed? Did you have a population boom? > 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. Hmmm. Do you have any stats on this matter? It seems…

> You are in IT earning only 20K EUR per year?

Do you realize most people working in IT are paid minimum wage or close to that? Most sysadmins and developers i've met here in France are under 2000€/month and it's only on places like HN that i read about huge salaries in IT. (sorry i don't have stats this is just anecdata)

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