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Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

citylab.com

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Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#261

Post by demomode »

otherme123 wrote: post #233

A lot of text, but didn't read the obvious: Spain is having three elections in the next month. This is an electoral stunt with no reality behind. The statistics show that Barcelona (and Madrid) are at a historical minimum of empty houses available, yet the spanish population is migrating from smaller cities to the big ones. This is pushing the rents up, and the politicians are obligated to "do something". Colau, Barc…

Please, leave politics aside here. I can smell your antiColau feeling from miles away.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#262

Post by danieldisu »

jdlyga wrote: post #157

Barcelona has really good urban planning ideas that I wish New York would take a look at. It feels like we're a decade behind them.

I think people in Barcelona may want to differ, rent prices have increased a lot due to tourism and expats flocking to Barcelona, while salaries for people outside the tech bubble are almost the same.

All these articles featuring all the good things that Barcelona is doing are just marketing...

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#263

Post by Xylakant »

gadders wrote: post #259
mcv wrote: post #242

In Amsterdam, any property that has been empty for over a year can be legally squatted, and once in, legal squatters may be hard to get out. For this reason, landlords tend to rent out their empty properties cheaply as "anti-kraak" (anti-squat), on the condition that the tenant moves out when the landlord needs the property again. This is quite popular for students because you often get a ridiculous amount of space f…

I've never understood the pro-squatting arguments. It's theft, no?

The German constitution mandates that (property) ownership brings obligations for the public good. Ownership is a construct secured by society, so society as a whole must at least partially benefit. As such, keeping a building empty can be considered theft, too.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#264

Post by throwaway-hn123 »

emptyfile wrote: post #257
mcv wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's possible. I admit I haven't been keeping up, and my knowledge of squatting stems mostly from the 1990s, when I was a student. I still think it's a very pragmatic way to fight real estate speculation. But my impression is that Amsterdam doesn't have a big problem with buildings sitting empty, so if squatting is illegal again, I guess they've found a different way to prevent it? I have no idea what that is, thou…

Wow, so every word of your post is probably wrong. Do you not see the problem with the most upvoted and seemingly informative comment on the thread being, at the very least, 20-30 years out of date?

take your outrage and fuck yourself with it.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#265

Post by RWildon »

Why is no one asking the biggest question; why are people piling into cities when there are towns and smaller cities that could be developed instead and thereby lower cost of living. It’s a global phenomenon it seems, as much as it doesn’t make any sense regardless.

Please save yourself the quality of life arguments. Those are post hoc arguments that only express laziness.

What state governments should be doing is “redistributing the wealth” by heavily taxing successful cities to fund and develop less successful counties and districts and towns. When businesses stop clustering and concentrating in places like Silicon Valley and NYC then you know that taxation is at the right level to compensate for the cartel and monopolistic like behaviors and phenomenon of, e.g., Silicon Valley and SF.

In the USA that should look like heavily taxing Silicon Valley and NYC, etc and using that money to fund high speed Internet and education and companies and business centers in under developed regions like rural Alabama or Mississippi or North Dakota.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#266

Post by mcv »

gadders wrote: post #259
mcv wrote: post #242

In Amsterdam, any property that has been empty for over a year can be legally squatted, and once in, legal squatters may be hard to get out. For this reason, landlords tend to rent out their empty properties cheaply as "anti-kraak" (anti-squat), on the condition that the tenant moves out when the landlord needs the property again. This is quite popular for students because you often get a ridiculous amount of space f…

I've never understood the pro-squatting arguments. It's theft, no?

There's more to life than property rights. Keeping buildings empty in an area where there's high demand for buildings is harmful, and real estate is inherently subject to regulation already. Opponents of squatting do indeed complain that it's theft of some sort and should be illegal, and that's hard to deny, but at the same time it's a very cheap and pragmatic solution to a problem: one way or another, it ensures that buildings are kept in use.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#267

Post by bprieto »

tschellenbach wrote: post #76

It sounds nice, but the real question is why are people letting these building sit empty. There is probably a good reason for it. Maybe some renter protection laws that went too far?

This is exactly the case.

Here in Spain it takes months, even a year to get a judge to evict a tenant that has stopped to pay rent. In the meantime, you need to keep paying for utilities or you will be fined, not the person not paying their rent. Even when you get them out, you could find a destroyed property, just for the sake of it, and you have to pay for the repair work. So just one stroke of bad luck with a tenant will make you lose years of profits.

The laws are extremely weighted in favour of the tenant: there is a minimun contract of five years, that the tenant can broke just telling the renter a month before, but the renter can't. Just a few weeks ago, the government approved a new law so if the renter is a company and not an individual, the minimum contract period is 7 years, and in this time you can only rise your price to keep with the official inflation index. So basically investors are tying themselves for seven years with these contracts. Of course they have the option to sell, but selling a property with a tenant that has the right to live there for years with a fixed price is difficult, so you'll need to sell for a lower price.

At the end all of this regulations makes the renters very careful, so they prefer to have their properties empty or wait months to find a suitable tenant. And that means that the price is higher and only people who can show they have an stable high paying job are able to rent.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#268

Post by lawlessone »

otherme123 wrote: post #233

A lot of text, but didn't read the obvious: Spain is having three elections in the next month. This is an electoral stunt with no reality behind. The statistics show that Barcelona (and Madrid) are at a historical minimum of empty houses available, yet the spanish population is migrating from smaller cities to the big ones. This is pushing the rents up, and the politicians are obligated to "do something". Colau, Barc…

>are at a historical minimum of empty houses available, yet the spanish population is migrating from smaller cities to the big ones.

So doing this in Barcelona actually makes sense then?

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#269

Post by peterbraden »

RWildon wrote: post #265

Why is no one asking the biggest question; why are people piling into cities when there are towns and smaller cities that could be developed instead and thereby lower cost of living. It’s a global phenomenon it seems, as much as it doesn’t make any sense regardless. Please save yourself the quality of life arguments. Those are post hoc arguments that only express laziness. What state governments should be doing is “r…

Because the migration to cities has been a large proportion of the increase in productivity over the last few centuries.

It is more efficient to have urbanised populations. Rural life is already over-subsidized by urban centers.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#270

Post by tim333 »

RWildon wrote: post #265

Why is no one asking the biggest question; why are people piling into cities when there are towns and smaller cities that could be developed instead and thereby lower cost of living. It’s a global phenomenon it seems, as much as it doesn’t make any sense regardless. Please save yourself the quality of life arguments. Those are post hoc arguments that only express laziness. What state governments should be doing is “r…

I'm not sure if you've been to Barcelona and smaller towns in the area but there's loads going on in Barcelona - art, galleries, industries etc and not much in the small towns. Why not let people get together where it's all happening? It might make more sense for government to fight NIMBY zoning so people could stick up a high rise and live where they feel like.
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