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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

#101

Post by tivert »

abduhl wrote: post #88
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.

The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view. Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the governmen…

>> 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.

> The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view.

It is not an extremist view. It's a public policy failure for land to sit vacant like that. Squatters rights can be a solution to that (e.g. in the US, squatters can actually get title to the land in cases of long-term abandonment).

> Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?

This is actually the extremist view, private property rights do not trump all other considerations.

For a very clear example: if you're surrounded by starving people, and you own a warehouse full of food that you plan to let rot because you can't be bothered, the government absolutely does have the right to tell you what to do with that food.

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

#102

Post by nephanth »

adolph wrote: post #89
crote wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not familiar with the specifics in Spain, but in a lot of jurisdictions that would be illegal. Until they are legally evicted they have the exact same rights as regular tenants, and harassing them would be a crime. The reasoning behind this is that some shady landlords might try to claim that genuine tenants are squatters in order to get rid of them. There are plenty of desperate people who'd accept a verbal con…

> Oh, but you paid your rent a day late? Sorry, you're now a "squatter", so we're cooking you alive until you leave. That seems far-fetched as a risk. Why would a company offering rentals push out someone who paid rent (even if late) and lose out on revenue/maintenance costs trying to get another renter?

Because most of their revenue comes from property prices rising, not from rent. The renters are mostly a source of cost / hassle (gotta communicate with them/ fix stuff etc..)

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

#103

Post by nephanth »

pc86 wrote: post #93
prmoustache wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not criminals if the law says they are not. They are definitely delinquents, but calling that a crime is a stretch, no lives are at risks.

I was unaware the definition of a crime is that someone's life is at risk.

Language barrier here. In French legal terms "crime" has a much heavier meaning that in American legal terms

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

#104

Post by [deleted] »

asoneth wrote: post #95
abduhl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view. Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the governmen…

> tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant. > why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building? For one thing, governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown. I…

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by nephanth »

I mean from a justice standpoint, squatting is wrong

But from a societal standpoint, the laws being this way have a bunch of positive externalities

1. It provides shelter to the homeless, with all the advantages we know that has

2. It provides an incentive to not leave property vacant. Very important in a country with high vacancy rates 1nd a hiusing crisis.

Note also that this is done at the expense of investors. Whose role in a capitalist society is to take on risk.

So while it is an injustice, i can definitely understand why it is this way.

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

#107

Post by abduhl »

asoneth wrote: post #95
abduhl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view. Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the governmen…

> tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant. > why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building? For one thing, governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown. I…

>> I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant.

Vacant land use taxes do make sense to me. That is not what GP advocated for: “Owners should be required to maintain their structures and keep them occupied, or forfeit the property.” Increased taxation is not forfeiture, and being forced to sell because taxes are prohibitive is different from the government taking your building.

>> governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown

This is a tortuous chain of logic to go from unoccupied buildings to overthrown government concerns.

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

#108

Post by pc86 »

nephanth wrote: post #103
pc86 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was unaware the definition of a crime is that someone's life is at risk.

Language barrier here. In French legal terms "crime" has a much heavier meaning that in American legal terms

This is very interesting, thank you!

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

#109

Post by abduhl »

tivert wrote: post #101
abduhl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view. Who defines what “maintained” means? Beyond safety concerns about the structure (and even then, they shouldn’t be able to tell me anything as long as I post a danger unsafe structure keep out sign and lock the doors), why would the governmen…

>> 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. > The government should tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? This is an extremist view. It is not an…

>> It's a public policy failure for land to sit vacant like that.

Then the government should buy the land.

>> For a very clear example: if you're surrounded by starving people, and you own a warehouse full of food that you plan to let rot because you can't be bothered, the government absolutely does have the right to tell you what to do with that food.

Let’s not use other examples and argumentation by analogy when we already have a very clear fact pattern. You own a building and the building is not currently occupied. The building is unsightly but structurally sound. Does/should the government have the right to make you surrender that building without compensation (because that’s what forfeit means) simply due to it being unoccupied? Why?

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

#110

Post by asoneth »

abduhl wrote: post #107
asoneth wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tell property owners that they are required to keep their property occupied otherwise the government should seize their property? I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant. > why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building? For one thing, governments have a vested interest in not being overthrown. I…

>> I suspect it would make more sense to do so via tax policy, i.e. high property taxes (or LVT) with a deduction for each occupant. Vacant land use taxes do make sense to me. That is not what GP advocated for: “Owners should be required to maintain their structures and keep them occupied, or forfeit the property.” Increased taxation is not forfeiture, and being forced to sell because taxes are prohibitive is differe…

> That is not what GP advocated for

Right, that's why before I responded to your question ("why would the government have any right to tell me what to do with my building?") I tried to make it clear that I think there are better approaches than what the GP was advocating for i.e. directly seizing vacant properties.

> This is a tortuous chain of logic to get from building with squatters to government overthrown.

Can you be more specific about what part you disagree with?

To be clear, I'm not arguing that squatting results in overthrown governments, but that the acceptance of widespread squatting is sometimes a (shortsighted) policy response to a housing crisis. Squatting is a symptom but what can actually topple governments is sufficiently high levels of homelessness. Any government that allows a sufficiently large percentage of residents (especially young people) to become homeless will eventually be replaced by anarchy or a new government.

To reiterate, I'm just trying to answer your question of what right the government has to tell you what to do with your property -- I'm not specifically defending the GP's suggestion.

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