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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

#321

Post by dang »

demomode wrote: post #261
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.

You're right that people should keep partisan swipes out of their comments here. However, the other comment did include other information, while yours didn't; that's probably why yours got downvoted.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#322

Post by cies »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #303
cies wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Municipalities can still kind of "allow" it on case by case basis. Nation wide legal basis (loop hole) is gone now indeed.

Thats likely with buildings owned by the municipalities? We have something similarly with a few decade old squats in Germany.

Not exactly, but that's often the case.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#323

Post by carrera83 »

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…

> The statistics show that Barcelona (and Madrid) are at a historical minimum of empty houses available

There are few empty houses NOW. That is why, if Ada Colau was also NOW passing a law to fine people for keeping houses empty, that would probably be a political stunt.

HOWEVER, today's news is not about any law being passed, but about the consequences of a law passed in 2007.

With that in mind, let's see if that law has been effective at decreasing the amount of empty houses since then, as that's the relevant time frame for this news story (below I'm just quoting the figures from[1], first shared by [2], AFAIK):

(2007: the anti-empty-houses law is passed) 2011: 80,000 empty houses (9.6% total over the 2019 total housing number, so probably underestimated) 2016: 31,000 (3.7%) 2019: 13,000 (1.52%)

This trend is far more interesting, as it strongly suggests that the law managed to unblock 8% of the total housing in Barcelona in under 8 years, making it 6 times smaller than it was. Make any problem you have 6 times smaller and you'll understand how big a deal this is.

So, clearly not a stunt: Ada Colau is just following the rules given to her and everybody else. She may be the first one taking those rules seriously, actually, but in any case, if the fines were not issued, all the landlords in the 8% that did comply with the law, could sue the government, and rightly so.

More generally, Colau cannot possibly be responsible for all problems currently plaguing Barcelona. They have been brewing over years of incompetence under governments both from the left-wing unionist party and the right-wing religious nationalists alike, who have all been stealing from the middle class for their own profit for the last thirty years or so, just as the political elites of virtually every major Western country.

I definitely think Colau can be criticized on a number of things, and I generally agree she's an awful major, but nobody can blame her for problems whose magnitude is so big that they obviously took decades to fester.

[1] https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/3299445/0/barcelona-detecta... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/vote?id=19429961&how=up&auth=23...

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#324

Post by mcv »

johnchristopher wrote: post #313
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…

> Many squatters are ideologically driven and improve the neighbourhoods they're squatting in. Says who ? Not that I don't believe you or that I believe it's false but are there more than one account of that happening ?

Yes there is, and it's fairly common as far as I can tell, but it's not universal. Roughly speaking, my impression at the time is that there are roughly three different types of squatters:

* Opportunistic squatters: they simply need a place to live, would like it to be nice and cheap, but don't have the time or dedication for any sort of activism. Mostly students and young unemployed people. Artists possibly, though they can also fall in the next group.

* Ideological squatters: they have political opinions about housing policy. They tend to know the law, but may also disagree with it. Likely to organise information meetings, protests, but also provide services like community centers or soup kitchens. Tend to take good care of their squats in order to show this can work, but the more militant type may organise riots. Amsterdam had a lot of "krakerrellen" (squatter riots) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but that hasn't really happened since the situation got normalised. Though there has been the occasional evacuation where quatters had to be forced out. They usually leave of their own accord and obey court orders, though.

* Criminal squatters: don't care about the law, or may be very aware that they're breaking it. Probably doesn't care about the state of the house. Possibly involved in various crimes. I'm not aware of real criminal squatters in Amsterdam; crime happens more on the real estate owners side: lots of organised crime in Amsterdam is involves in the real estate business. That said, I imagine militant anarchists may also cross over from ideological to criminal squatters. And of course this is the group most likely to keep a low profile.

There's grey areas between all of them of course.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#325

Post by mcv »

dontbenebby wrote: post #316
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…

How much notice does the landlord need to give? It would suck to get evicted mid-semester.

I don't know. From what I understand, they don't have normal tenant rights, so can be evicted pretty quickly. Yes, that sucks. That's the downside that comes with cheap space. You've got to pay the ridiculously overpriced costs for student rooms if you want stability.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#326

Post by mcv »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #275
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…

In the uk to get round this sort of tax its common for buildings to have their roof removed.

I noticed in Egypt that are a lot of inhabited unfinished buildings everywhere. From what I understand, that's for tax reasons: you don't pay tax (or pay less) if the building is still under construction, but you can still live there.

Looks really ugly.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#327

Post by peterbraden »

luiscleto wrote: post #272
peterbraden wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if remote work opportunities could become significant enough to slow this trend and make more people prefer smaller/quieter towns to the big city life while still holding jobs for big industries. Does anyone happen to know if this effect is/can be a thing or do remote workers still flock to big cities anyway? I imagine this could eventually lead to lower rents in cities (but also lower salaries due to increa…

Remote work is a rounding error compared to the overall migration trends. Many jobs require presence, and this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#328

Post by dontbenebby »

mcv wrote: post #325
dontbenebby wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much notice does the landlord need to give? It would suck to get evicted mid-semester.

I don't know. From what I understand, they don't have normal tenant rights, so can be evicted pretty quickly. Yes, that sucks. That's the downside that comes with cheap space. You've got to pay the ridiculously overpriced costs for student rooms if you want stability.

This is why it's better to just live inside the dorm, Real Genius style ;)

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#329

Post by geezerjay »

Xylakant wrote: post #263
gadders wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> As such, keeping a building empty can be considered theft, too.

Your assertion makes zero sense even if we accept your thesis at face value. For example, it's absurd to leap from "society mut at least partially benefit" from private property to assert that private property not being used in compliance to your personal taste to be theft. That's just plain nuts from any angle.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#330

Post by lsiebert »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #317
lsiebert wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing money doesn't mean losing the underlying property. There were certainly some losers, but the vast majority of them were the people who lost their house, not the banks which foreclosed on them.

People that lost their house overpaid for real estate that they could not afford. It’s strange that you seem to assume that overburdened debtors are saints while overextended creditors are devils. Both parties made mistakes they should not have made, and both parties suffered rightly as a result.

You realize banks were foreclosing on people who didn't even have mortgages, or never missed payments, and often on mortgages they didn't legally own, right?

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/13/kamala-harris-mortage-cr...

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