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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

#211

Post by southerntofu »

pnut wrote: post #195
ssijak wrote: post #33

This is pure madness. So you have 48 hours after squatting started to report it and potentially get a fast eviction (why is it not an automatic criminal case for breaking into the property is beyond me). But after 48 hours it seems like it becomes a nightmare. So if you are on a business trip for 3 days or visiting parents in a different city or vacationing for a few days and somebody enters your home, you are out of…

I don't get it. You have keys to the place. There's no written contract, no money changing hands. Show up with some muscle, chuck the losers out on the street and change the locks. What are they going to do, take you to court?

From a legal standpoint, assaulting people is illegal. Assaulting them in their residence (trespassing) could be even more illegal. They definitely could take you to court.

From a moral standpoint, do you realize you're advocating for the mafia here? That's exactly what private mafia companies have been doing for years. Rightful owners enjoying their property are already well protected by the law and the police (too much actually), at least in western Europe, as explained by other commenters.

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

#212

Post by victornomad »

coopykins wrote: post #186

The housing construction in Spain dropped flat in 2018. From building 9000 units/month to 700 units. Yet the population increased in 1,000,000 people in the last 10 years. It is not sustainable. https://tradingeconomics.com/spain/housing-starts https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/spain-populat...

Most of the construction happened in touristic areas and for speculation. There is not a lack of housing in Spain.

The biggest issue there is how shitty funds and speculators are screwing the market so normal people cannot buy a house.

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

#213

Post by UweSchmidt »

terminalcommand wrote: post #149
lukan wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having a building vacant is already incredibly expensive; costs and interest add up and the building can get severely damaged (a building has to be heated in winter, ventilated properly and issues like broken pipes have to be found quickly by tenants etc.). Common reasons for vacancies are probate disputes, owners that are house rich but cash poor and can't handle maintenance, issues with building code and permits and similar. Apart from some truly dysfunct situations a scheme that involves vacancy doesn't make much sense. Why not take even a modest rent for a bit?

In general, everything you could propose that puts pressure on landlords leads to transfer of ownership from your (maybe friendly) landlord with 2-3 units, to larger, more professional companies who can handle the paperwork and regulations, with a tendency to tear down and rebuild something that is more expensive to rent or buy.

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

#214

Post by Zanni »

dr__mario wrote: post #160
franciscop wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But again, you talk about usurpation or trespassing? And even in that case, the data is the data: the rest is speculation.

The data you have is the data you have but not necessarily the ground truth. See, for example, San Francisco shoplifting statistics.

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

alexpc201 wrote: post #114
mijamo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is obviously not accurate. The 48h delay is not 48h after squatters entered the place, but 48h after you DISCOVERED them. And after those 48h you will still get your property back, just much more slowly because it is just not considered an emergency anymore if you discover a problem and don't signal it immediately. If you go on vacation for 3 weeks, discover squatters when you come back and can prove you are the…

It is not what happens in Barcelona. For six months the "okupas" have been inside an apartment that a family left completely closed to go away for a weekend, the Mossos arrived 15 minutes after the occupation, probably alerted by "Securitas" and did absolutely nothing. Saw everything from my window, and now I’m terrified if I have to leave my house for one day.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by jajko »

coopykins wrote: post #186

The housing construction in Spain dropped flat in 2018. From building 9000 units/month to 700 units. Yet the population increased in 1,000,000 people in the last 10 years. It is not sustainable. https://tradingeconomics.com/spain/housing-starts https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/spain-populat...

Since its usually pretty lucrative business, what is the reason? Either government is making it too hard, corruption too rampart, people too poor, banks not giving loans (but then why since generally they like doing so) and so on. Everything that has to do with state of economy and government.

I expect people to be a bit more curious on Hacker news and drill a bit into shallow facts, everything has underlying reasons.

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

#217

Post by southerntofu »

misja111 wrote: post #154

> if a property is not adequately secured and is left unattended, it becomes vulnerable to occupation. > 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?

That's precisely what fascist news organizations will have you believe, but the reality could not be further. Here in France BFMTV or CNews regularly have segments about poor people displaced from their homes by squatters (like the Maryvonne case or the Roland case) however when you check for information, you realize they were not protected by the police because they had abandoned the house for years so it was not considered their residence.

People going away for vacations, even months-long vacations are definitely protected by the law. It is illegal to break into people's home. It may not be illegal, depending on your jurisdiction, to enter an abandoned housing unit and claim it as your residence. It may still be illegal to break into it.

(when i say fascist news organizations i do mean they are run by actual fascists like Bollore, it's not a figure of speech)

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

#218

Post by spaniard89277 »

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…

It is a pretty normal salary here in Spain. The housing crisis is happening because of several factors, but mostly because there's a huge increase in demand due to immigration (millions of people coming) from all profiles (richer and poorer) so we're getting squeezed hard.

The regulations around housing are so bad that almost nothing is getting built. What's getting built is for wealthy people, and no public housing in sight.

And yes, of course rich foreigners play a role here. You maybe don't like to hear it because you're likely richer than the average spaniard, but they are plenty, and we can see what they do once they arrive here.

This is no second-hand information. Because the housing situation is so bad they go on sprees trying to convince landlords to rent to them by offering more money.

Also, getting out of cities is problematic because we can't save money nor have disposable income, so owning and maintaining a car is quite an effort, and that in a city where I don't need a "B" stick to enter the city, in other cities it's worse because you're only allowed a subset of cars which are more expensive. There aren't cheap cars anymore, even shitty Dacias are +20k and anything under 10k second hand is close to junk.

We're fucked honestly. I'm willing to move, but I don't know where...

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

#219

Post by victornomad »

propaganda and lies from a company that profits from this...

1) Squatters squat empty buildings that have been empty for years, not personal homes...

2) If your home is squatted that's an infringement. The police will come and detain the people inside.

-

Who profits from this propaganda?

i) Owners with dozens / hundreds or thousands of houses (such funds)

ii) Security and insurance companies

iii) Extreme right. The use this to capture the vote of normal people being afraid

iv) Right wing in general (who are the land owners of Spain) because this might lead to have laws that benefit themselves for continuing speculating with the house market

(edit formatting)

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

#220

Post by southerntofu »

lm28469 wrote: post #174
misja111 wrote: post #154

> if a property is not adequately secured and is left unattended, it becomes vulnerable to occupation. > 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?

It's the same in France so I wouldn't even be surprised. You can't even cut electricity/heat as it is seen inhumane and in theory you have to renovate/fix the house every time something dangerous needs to be fixed because it's illegal to provide unsafe housing. Sometimes it takes years for people to get their house back and they often are completely trashed

All you said is wrong.

France, like Spain, has strong residence protection for anyone, including homeowners. So if someone takes your house while you are away it is not legally squatting, but rather homebreaking and they will be evicted without even a trial.

If a house you own gets squatted you may stop paying for electricity/gaz/water. But to be honest apart from big corps abandoned buildings, i've never seen a squat where the electricity/water was already on.

It is illegal to rent dangerous housing. It may not be illegal to give it away in good faith, and it's certainly not your responsibility as an owner if it gets squatted. To my knowledge, and despite hearing about this constantly on homeowners forums, there has never been a case of owners being legally responsible for injuries to squatters.

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