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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

#271

Post by terminalcommand »

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 is the very problem we are facing in Turkey :). The municipality determines the value of housing in a neighborhood each year. That is taken as a basis for property taxes and transaction taxes. The municipality assessed value is somewhere near 1/20th of the value of an average flat. So, almost no tax gets collected :(.

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

#272

Post by terminalcommand »

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

You do not have to care if it is occupied. Tax the property tax. If the owner does not rent out the property, they'll pay out of pocket.

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

#273

Post by terminalcommand »

account42 wrote: post #251
unaindz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know if people live there, just raise tax enough so that the owner feels like renting or selling the building is better than paying the taxes out of pocket.

This also forcess poorer people (including retired people) to sell off the house they are actually living in. This is especially true if the tax is based on the current estimated value which may be much higher than what the house was bought for.

There are ways around this. For example set a property tax from second home on. Do not tax the primary residence. Or set income brackets. If poorer people live in their own homes they don't pay property tax.

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

#274

Post by misja111 »

johngladtj wrote: post #189
reify wrote: post #84

Squatters cannot break into your home and take residence. They can only enter if you leave a window or door open for them to enter. If they break-in that is a criminal offence and the police will treat it as a buglary and arrest those in the property. I used to squat here on Airstrip One in my twenties when I was homeless. We did not squat in homes where people lived, We squatted in empty properties. The utilities co…

[flagged]

> I bet you'd see something wrong if I went into your wallet and took some cash, after all you're not using it right now

This happens all the time, it's called taxes

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

#276

Post by Levitz »

southerntofu wrote: post #210
throwaway2037 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Spain has exceptionally low wages in the IT sector though, taking cost of living into account and all.

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

#277

Post by pimterry »

rudnevr wrote: post #264

I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. Eve…

> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked.

https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish):

* 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c...)

* Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allanamiento de morada) and 95% of cases are occupation of an empty and unused house/shop/office (usurpación de vivienda). That includes unused commercial properties, and homes that are neither rented nor used by the owner.

* Note that a personally used holiday homes are also considered as a person's residence, so any occupation there would also come into that first 5%: https://www.ocu.org/fincas-y-casas/gestion/gestion-patrimoni....

That is to say: it is a problem (the 500 - 1000 cases per year nationwide of occupation of people's homes is clearly problematic) but it's not a really widespread problem for most middle-class people (the vast majority of people even in the middle classes do not own totally unused property).

It is a significant concern if you're a commercial landlord with any shops & offices between rental contracts, or if you're directly investing in property as pure speculation, without using it at all (which imo should be discouraged regardless - although I'd rather punitively tax it).

In the really problematic 5% case of people's homes, my understanding is that the law has tightened significantly, and if you can show that you're registered as actually living there, in theory they will evict okupas within 24 hours (I don't know how well that works in practice though).

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

#278

Post by Malcolmlisk »

curtisblaine wrote: post #203
Malcolmlisk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Who is saying that? Who are you talking to?

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

#279

Post by littlestymaar »

quectophoton wrote: post #253
dukeyukey wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If a property is fully decorated (photos of my family, toothbrush I've used, etc), is that still considered empty? If the answer is "yes", then based on your post, the answer to my question of how long can I take a vacation for, is "decades". But if that is indeed considered empty, then what if in addition to that, every month I email someone my travel expenses and tell them to print them and to put them in some draw…

It's funny because most of your argument assumes setting some kind of threshold would be a problem, as if it was not exactly how fiscal rules worked already.

For instance, you are paying income taxes in your “country of residence” and not in your country of vacations (unless you are an American citizen living abroad, in which case you pay it to both your country of residence and to the US), and there is a threshold that makes one country qualify as “country of residence” versus your countries of vacations.

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

#280

Post by Malcolmlisk »

misja111 wrote: post #265
Malcolmlisk wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Your first and second house are protected by the law. If someone enters in your first or second house when you are outside, they will get expelled in the same moment the police arrives, and they will face criminal consecuences. The problem comes when you have 200 houses and somebody squats one of those where you don't live and you don't use. A problem for the banks, vulture funds and big renters. An…

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. But does the law define a difference between, say, your second home or your 100th?

It's pretty easy. Where you are registered in your city. There is an obligation to register yourself where do you live and where do you reside. If you live and work in madrid but you have a house in cadiz, then your house in cadiz is not where you live...
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