Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

idealista.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 930 posts

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

#311

Post by peter335 »

dr__mario wrote: post #197
dr__mario wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but first: is it financially risky right now to own properties? No, based on the data we have. Second: can renters be hurt even more? Are landlords the most vulnerable people right now? The situation is pretty awful right now, while at the same time there are people whose sole contribution to society is "owning flats". And I agree on increasing property taxes (any progressive taxes over capital would do).

BTW, I'd love to recommend a book that explains all this much better than I would do. Unfortunately, I think it's only in Spanish: "La España de las piscinas" (The Spain of Swimming Pools).

Thanks for the recommendation!

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

#312

Post by pineaux »

lukan wrote: post #140
panarky wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's madness is the state allowing property owners to leave vacant, dilapidated buildings to blight the neighborhood. Owners should be required to maintain their structures and keep them occupied, or forfeit the property.

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…

This is not true. You can query the Grondbuch and it will give you all the necessary information of the owner.

Edit: sorry, havent been living in Germany for long. Thought it was the same as the Dutch kadaster. Turns out, it's not and my dealings with it have been unusually easy until now.

The reason why expropriation isn't used a lot is because it costs a lot of resources.

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

#313

Post by radres »

hichamdoe wrote: post #47

This is bullshit. I'm dev from Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and the squatting topic is periodically being pumped up by the same dumb bastards (always the same companies and media). Squatting exists at the city but it is not an issue in the daily lifes of Barcelona and Spain citizens, only for the fucking big owners with more than 10 flats each. Squatting happens because this bastards (big owners) are inflating the fl…

Demand of people is the only way of inflating the prices. The people who would like to live in Spain, both Spanish people and non-Spanish, are the people who make your country as rich as it is.

Am I hearing you saying "What rich? we have poor economy". Yeah, prevent people from investing in real estate and you'll be even poorer.

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

#314

Post by dghughes »

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…

Madness is the story I just saw of a woman who bought land in Hawaii and someone else built a house on it. Then squatters arrived. Then the developer sued her. What a mess.

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

#315

Post by madeofpalk »

solids wrote: post #307
lazyasciiart wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into…

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.

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

#316

Post by stefantalpalaru »

matt-p wrote: post #227
otherme123 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I think okupas are a very small problem, mainly used for propaganda. But how are real state companies feeding the problem? The problem is that there's no houses available, because politicians create artificial scarcity. In any local government, the stronger department is "Urbanism", decides if you get rich by allowing you to develop on your property, or you stay poor because you don't get the permits. Come on,…

Yes, seriously, blaming a real-estate listing website for listing real-estate is absolutely insane. We all need to build more housing, that's it. That's the solution.

[dead]

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

#317

Post by harperlee »

peter335 wrote: post #167
dr__mario wrote: post #144

"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…

If you make it financially risky to own a rental property you're also making it more risky and thus less profitable to buy and rent out apartments. This hurts both renters and the potential landlords. It would be much better to just increase property taxes.. Speaking as a Dane, this kind kind of economically illiterate leftist lawlessness is an important reason why Spain is poorer both poorer and has a worse welfare…

> you're also making it more risky and thus less profitable to buy and rent out apartments

You would be surprised about the sheer number of spaniards that would welcome this second-order effect.

In the last ~10 years, renting has skyrocketed, due to the discovery of the spanish renting market by international money, and renting laws relaxation (demand side). Meanwhile, this has not increased the supply of homes, as it is felt that there is oversupply, the demand is very concentrated on selected cities, and the turnaround of building to rent or sell is long. This double-whammy has made renting quite onerous, and buying directly out of reach, for a lot of people.

Some extra tidbits:

- Buying: Upwards of 40% of home purchase is without mortgage (not a pattern of someone buying for the first time)

- Renting: In Madrid, on average 62% of salary before taxes goes to renting; 58% in Barcelona (https://www.fotocasa.es/fotocasa-life/alquiler/los-espanoles...) (how is that even feasible? well, young people end up just renting a room)

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

#318

Post by next_xibalba »

madeofpalk wrote: post #315
solids wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.

No, it’s not. Living where you want, for free, is not a right.

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

#319

Post by franciscop »

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 cases I know of are usurpation, not trespassing.

Oh sure, I'm not saying the number of lawsuits are wrong, I'm saying something different:

• The lawsuits, by their nature, represent a lower bound of the number of okupations, since one would assume that there's many cases where there's an okupa but the owner doesn't go the legal way. One can hardly assume the opposite since that's a lost lawsuit for sure. So the number of lawsuits is the lower bound for the number of okupas, and NOT a representation. I do not know nor claim to know where the upper bound or actual number of okupas is, but equating lawsuits with occurences is a weak correlation at best.

• There's clearly a big one-sided abuse of the system, which affects both homeowners AND honest renters.

• I'd also agree to add punitive measures to banks or companies that hoard a large number of houses for especulation. This is slightly difficult to arrange legally without also punishing someone who buys a second house, but I'm sure possible and I believe both sides of the aisle would benefit from some regulation like this.

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

#320

Post by 8A51C »

KaiserPro wrote: post #171
giantg2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Making it too easy to get rid of squatters would expose the most vulnerable people in society to even more abuse, and making it trickier for absentee landlords to get rid of real squatters is considered a fair price to prevent this." Except this is poorly thought out and not really true. You can provide better protection for both sides by requiring written and recorded contracts for real property use/rental, just as…

> You can provide better protection for both sides by requiring written and recorded contracts for real property use/rental, just as we do for real property sales today. In england there is the "Assured shorthold tenancy agreement" which basically provides a set of rights to tenants and landlords. On the one hand its great as it sets out a clear set of expectations for tenants (24 hours notice of landlord visiting, c…

Just to be clear, a tenant cannot be kicked out after a month. A section 21 notice requires a tenant to hand back possesion in 2 months, if a tenant does not the landlord may make an application to court for a possession order (which WILL be granted if all process followed correctly),the order is served and then if a tenant still doesn't relinquish possession a landlord may apply for an eviction warrant, this gives them the right to employ the bailiff to forcibly kick a tenant out. Depending on the courts and bailiff availability this process may take anywhere between 6 weeks and several months on top of the initial 2 months. The costs are often a loss for the landlord. 'Kicked out' was just a turn of phrase but I thought it should be clear in this context.

As for the most vulnerable, ime it is common for social tenants, that is councils and housing associations (who are compelled by law to offer affordable rents) to have assured tenancies, which do not allow no fault evictions. And if not then there is an extra notice period of 6 months plus 2 months for the section 21.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/...

There is of course a crisis of availability of all rental properties so the most vulnerable overlap social and private sectors.

Post reply on HN