Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by stctw » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #457

next_xibalba wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's play it out. A squatter steals an owner's property while they're away on a Summer-long vacation. Later, the squatter spends some temporary time away from the property. During this time, another squatter comes along and steals the property from them. And so on. How does this not just lead to an unending string of lawlessness. Further, why would anyone invest in building and maintaining housing when their p…

The criterion of abandonment of private property I think should differ based on the local customs and on the type of private property, so for houses for example maybe it should be a year or 2 of you not living there before your house is considered abandoned and someone can live there. For for example mines I think they should be considered abandoned and ready for someone else to use much faster. The main problem of p…

How dare you use "dehumanizing" rhetoric against me, you far-right neo-fascist! That's rude!

The thing about hypocrisy is that it reveals that you think you are superior to others and therefore entitled to rule over them using whatever means necessary, including dishonesty and, ultimately, force. It is the definition of anti-social and is considered unacceptable in society for good reason.

The mind is much like a computer: garbage in, garbage out. You have essentially been mis- (or mal-) programmed. If you were to free your mind of these destructive ideas, you could live a freer, happier life and contribute to society instead of trying to destroy it. Make the choice if you still can, for the longer you hold on to evil, the stronger its grasp on you.

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

#592

Post by TotalCrackpot » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #590

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of our history humans did not have to pay for a piece of land to put up some yurt or hut and live there. How is the current system not strong taking whatever they can? Private property is just a legitimized theft, because it leaves some people without access to land or natural resources that is required for survival. It's not true that without private property you get state slavery or a strongman situation,…

> For most of our history humans did not have to pay for a piece of land to put up some yurt or hut and live there. In those same times, anyone that wandered by who was stronger could simply kill them and take over the yurt, until someone stronger showed and killed them in turn. Not a great way to live, and not a very long life.

How is that different to the current society, except that now if you put up a yurt somewhere you will get harassed by police?

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

#593

Post by jjav » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:41 PM UTC

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #492

ensignavenger wrote: post #486

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.

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

Did you realize you just came up with the system you were opposing?

We can organize into some groups, let's call them countries, with an organized self-defense groups, we can call them police and military, to prevent our yurts from being stolen.

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

#594

Post by ImJamal » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:42 PM UTC

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #552

ImJamal wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to provide your address so we can stay at your place? It would be inherently oppressive if you don't. There are homeless shelters where people can have shelter without paying rent.

I am living under my address, I am occupying that place, so I am not fine with providing my address. But I am fine with people living in abandoned houses.

How do you define abandoned? If I leave for 1 day is that abandoned? What about 1 week, 1 month or 1 year?

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

#595

Post by jjav » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:43 PM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #539

s1artibartfast wrote: post #406

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…

> while doing nothing in return If you could see the extent of organization that such a life requires, you wouldn't say that. Especially when the alternative is "I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing.

> which is the highest form of doing nothing

If you can show me how to pay the mortgage by doing nothing, I'd love to know.

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

#596

Post by carlosjobim » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:43 PM UTC

f33d5173 wrote: post #573

carlosjobim wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 the…

Renters are already paying the maximum they can. No landlord would let that juicy money go unmolested.

If landlords prefer to let their investments sit empty instead of selling, because their profits from renting aren't enough, then that is a foolish decision. But you shouldn't annihilate a whole nation because of such folly.

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

#597

Post by DowsingSpoon » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:44 PM UTC

In some states in the US, you can just shoot home invaders. That is, the use of deadly force is appropriate for protecting one’s self and family from a home invasion, and there is no additional duty to retreat from your own home. It’s a shame that the people of Spain live with such little freedom that these bandits are able to basically force people out of their own house.

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

#598

Post by ghostDancer » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:48 PM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #567

solids wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the housing crisis is related to the lack of legal security that owners have, which severely reduced the offer and obviously increased the prices. The housing law that the current government passed wasn’t very clever…

You were downvoted but you're hitting the nail on the head. The housing problem is an issue of supply and demand. Currently demand is bigger than supply and that leads to problems, no matter what you do. Either renting prices go up until many people can't afford to rent anymore, or if some law is put into place such as restricting rents or reducing owners' rights, supply will become even smaller and demand even bigge…

In Spain there are lots of empty apartments, from the bubble and IIRC are more than 2 million empty , but prices are still going up, most of the market is on the hands of foreign funds who are emptying the cities with their prices. There's a lot of speculation with housing in Spain. Not to talk about the campaign in the media about squatting, sowing fear continuously. The supply is artificially being held by the owners.

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

#599

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #502

Wytwwww wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or a property that they intended to flip or rent out? Makes a big difference in how the courts would see it. Are you implying that there is something morally wrong about purchasing a rundown (apparently barely liveable) property, renovating it and selling or renting it? How do you expect the supply of housing to increase (and prices to go down in turn) if you disincentive such behaviour? Seems rather absurd...

It's besides the point what I think is morally wrong or right. There is a legal difference between "occupying" someone's primary residence, and occupying other types of properties. The first isn't considered "occupying" here but rather "breaking and entering", and the local police are very quick at acting on those types of crimes, especially if the criminals are still inside the property.

No. It doesn't matter whether it is a primary residence, secondary residence, or an investment property. It is the property of someone else. Without permission, opening the door or window and going into it is breaking and entering.

And do not try to argue that breaking, entering, and squatting somehow reduces the housing shortage — the effect is the exact opposite. With insecure property access and rights, people will be LESS likely to invest in fixing up unliveable places. Just think for a second: with solid property rights, it can be an enjoyable practice to invest in and improve a run-down property to a rent-able or sell-able state. But if you are 50% likely to lose your investment and get a massive headache, you'll just go do something else, and let it rot, so no one can use it. Multiply this 100k times, and you have 100k fewer units on the market, just falling into dust.

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

#600

Post by ghostDancer » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

e98cuenc wrote: post #299

pimterry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (allan…

These stats don't account for the much more common case of people that start renting a house and stop paying the rent indefinitely because technically it doesn't fit the definition of "okupas." I've seen estimates of that number being as high as 1% of the people renting, making it ~30K extra people living on a house they don't own and are not paying for.

That's interesting , where can I see those stats? And legally as you say it's not the same as squatting, it's quite different.