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

idealista.com

571–580 of 930 posts

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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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. But it is the crux of the problem. When establishing things like "country of residence" (or, here in the US, to which state(s) you owe taxes), the second order effects aren't the same. It's the difference between "you owe a few extra percent of your income for…

First of all, there's no need for a complete expropriation all at once. Having a significant property tax that scales with time would do the trick too. Start with 5%, next year the tax is 10% of its original price, then 15%, etc. After 4 years you lost half of your property, so I'm happy with that, and since it's all about percentage like other taxes you should be happy too.

And then, all this argument is basically a straw man, because there no need for the state to guess anything or to set threshold, at all: all you need to do is mandate people to declare their primary residence, and in fact it is the case in many fiscal system already! If it is your primary residence, then fine, you can leave it empty for as long you want, as long as you are not lying on the fact that this is in fact your primary residence (and if you're lying, then the state must gather the evidence and win against you in court, which is what the rule of law is).

Tada! Imaginary problems solved.

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

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an ahistorical perspective. For most of human history, you could be killed for putting a yurt or hut in someone else's land. Even chimps will kill others for infringing on territory. There were breif periods where humans entered virgin land, but these people migrated because other land and resources were spoken for. >Private property is just a legitimized theft, because it leaves some people without access to…

> That is an ahistorical perspective. For most of human history, you could be killed for putting a yurt or hut in someone else's land. Even chimps will kill others for infringing on territory. I don't agree with you, there are books such as The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity that counter your rhetoric. Private property norms did not exist for most of human history. > Even chimps will kill others for in…

In general, I'm getting the impression from your comment that you have some overly idealistic beliefs, and that you're perhaps unwilling to engage honestly with ideas that are counter to your own, but in any case..

Re: The Dawn of Everything

You're saying you don't agree with him because of a book you read - but that book has legitimate historians making some pretty bold criticisms: "cherry-picked and selectively presented examples", "perilously close to scholarly malpractice."

There is some positive feedback as well, but in general, if a book claiming to be historical elicits this kind polarization, it's probably not something to base a strong belief on.

I'm also not quite sure why you would find it hard to agree with the notion that, throughout history, humans have been protective of their territory. The list of examples you could point to for this is unending.

> Why then some people usurp land and natural resources and not let others use them?

You're question here doesn't really do accomplish anything re: property somehow being theft. I would suggest that "the reason" some people aquire land and don't let others use it can simply be because they don't want to. Sometimes the answer is that it's not financially viable to share it. Sometimes the answer is that they fear the destruction of the land or resource if they just open it up to anyone. Any of these reasons is sufficient, because they don't actually need a reason.

> If you agree that there is no natural rights, then how do you justify private property rights?

To start, the other guy never claimed private property was a natural right. The rights we have emerged from people wanting to self organize for their mutual benefit. They needed to agree on some fundamental protections that enable an actual net benefit of their organized society, and giving people rights to own and protect their property is generally needed for people to feel confident that effort they put in to improve the land is effort they will be rewarded for. It's a nice idea that people will improve land for the good of humanity, but in reality, people are not motivated by that enough to overcome the people who would abuse that system by "free-loading". It should tell you something that private property + property rights have consistently emerged, whenever people have tried to put together a society.

> Please share your sources for this statement

I admittedly didn't know much about this, but on some cursory research, it seems pretty obvious to me that this was not an entirely "free choice" based movement..

"Rebels wore ski masks and used furniture and other office materials to barricade themselves inside of buildings once they had taken them over.[11] During the occupation of the city, rebels also painted pro-Zapatista statements on the walls of buildings.[12] While raiding San Cristóbal de las Casas, the Zapatistas released 230 predominantly Indigenous prisoners from jail and also demolished land records in protest"

And the source you're asking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_uprising#Events

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

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood what the above commenter meant when they wrote that risk of squatters makes it "less profitable to buy and rent out apartments". Because of the additional risks of squatters, landowner will either have to take additional security measures (and make up the costs with higher rent) or accept the risk of squatters (and make up that risk with higher rent). In either case, the rent getsor expensiv…

> Because of the additional risks of squatters, landowner will either have to take additional security measures (and make up the costs with higher rent) or accept the risk of squatters (and make up that risk with higher rent). In either case, the rent getsor expensive. When renting becomes less profitable, real estate prices fall as landlords want to get rid off their bad investments. That means people can buy instea…

> Landlords will always extract maximum rent possible from tenants

Landlords are competing in a market. The maximum possible rent has to do with how much the rest of the market is charging. That in turn is capped from above by how much a would be landlord would pay to buy a unit and start renting it out. If that price goes up, then landlords can charge more.

There is also a maximum amount that people can pay, but they have little choice but to pay whatever the market is charging, or else live on the street.

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

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of human history, people fought over the right for members of their group to put up a hut or yurt on a piece of land. And/Or some other, more powerful group would come and take whatever they wanted, including sex and slaves, from other, weaker groups of humans.

Yeah, so indeed it's important to organize self-defense groups that can help you not get hurt or enslaved.

Now you have a group (or multiple groups) of people that will use violence to prevent people from doing the things that they feel are wrong. Probably they'll decide on what those things that are worth using violence to prevent are, and probably they'll write them down so that everyone is on the same page. If they don't do that, then they are using violence for arbitrary and undefined reasons, which most people don't want. I think I see where this is going...

What is the vision for this scenario that doesn't just turn into new groups taking power and enforcing their rules?

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

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to pay for a place to live is simply theft and entitlement. They expect people to build and maintain homes for them while doing nothing in return. If you abolish property rights, your two options are state slavery or anarchy where the strong take whatever they can. These misguided ideologies can only live parasitic ally on the fringe of a otherwise functional society. If they got their way, the society would…

> If you abolish property rights, your two options are state slavery or anarchy where the strong take whatever they can. I'm pretty sure they're talking about real property. Land and improvements. Not the strong taking away everything you have. And there are reasonable ways to manage land and housing other than private ownership. There's also the option of limiting it to personal use.

>I'm pretty sure they're talking about real property. Land and improvements. Not the strong taking away everything you have.

An individual has to be very careful not to create any real property value or improvements, otherwise it will be taken from you.

Conceptually there are lots of solutions to managing this problem. Historically, they rely on a state institution that goes around stripping people of what they create, forcing people to create things they don't own.

Communism almost always devolves into totalitarianism for this reason.

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

#576
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the property tax goes up by 10x, then that 80 year old couple has seen a 10x return on their real estate investment. They can easily take out a reverse mortgage to pay the property tax for the rest of their lives.

"They can easily take out a reverse mortgage to pay the property tax for the rest of their lives." Not everyone can do that easily. I would not know how that works and where are the downsides. I can learn it, sure, but for an 80 year old this would be real stress, having to figure unknown contracts out - and not getting cheated. Old people are a prime target for frauds for a reason.

The reality is that the same thing, in effect, happens if you stop paying property taxes. The tax builds up and then when the house is sold after passing the government collects the tax before the descendants receive the sale proceeds.

This is why complaining about rising property taxes is almost never about the elderly people who actually live in the house. It's about their children that want to inherit the house without paying off their parents' property taxes.

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

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct; purchasing real estate is obviously morally neutral.

It is correct. Moral neutrality is a mental defense mechanism to avoid bad feelings. The vast majority of folks find it easier to rewrite their interpretation of events than tell themselves no.

[deleted]

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

#578
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd. Is your car sitting in your driveway right now? Someone else could be driving it, it's immoral that you don't leave the keys sitting on the roof. Is your bed or couch empty right now? Someone else could be sleeping there right now. Do you have money in your checking account? Someone else could be buying the things they need with that money, you should put the cash outside for them to take. A house sit…

It's not absurd. Yes, it's immoral that I am as wealthy as I am (relatively, on a global scale), and it's immoral that I get to eat so much better than others in the same society as I am in. It doesn't mean I'm going to do anything about it, it just means on that axis, I am not a particularly moral person.

It's not a fact that it's immoral. It being immoral is _your_ judgement. If someone else thinks it's not immoral, that is _just as legitimate_.

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

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the comment you responded to explains how this makes it more risky and less profitable to rent out apartments. It's dissuading people from renting: > you're also making it more risky and thus less profitable to buy and rent out apartments When something becomes riskier, fewer people do it unless there's some other incentive. A vacancy tax could incentivize renting, buy enabling squatters does nothing but makin…

When a renter buys an apartment or house to live in, that means the place they rented becomes vacant. It is the most basic math, addition and subtraction. Lower real estate prices means less renters and thus lower rents. Unless you conjure people into the country by immigration.

Making renting riskier doesn't inherently make property less expensive. If a shortage of rental properties makes more people want to buy condos and houses, then there's more demand for condos and houses. Making renting riskier also means that apartment buildings are less profitable and less likely to be built.

A more likely outcome is that condos and houses get more expensive because of the shortage of apartments. And fewer apartments get built because investors know that they will not be able to kick out squatters.

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

#580

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…

Can you define that "middle-class", please? If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class.

> If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class.

Someone could be a landlord and only be taking home like $50k per year as "salary". You're saying that person is not middle-class?

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