Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

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Lavanda
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Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Lavanda » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:01 am

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/18/in ... 49049.html

This story is interesting but badly reported, I think, as there are so many questions unanswered. How Sanchez with his minority Socialist government could implement something like this remains to be seen. However, in principle, it's a good idea. In practice the population of Spain is decreasing year-on-year so one assumes that the occupants of the empty houses would be immigrants. Also, in my village there are a lot of empty houses inherited from family but which no one wants. Would the owners have to pay to make the houses habitable before they are forcibly rented out? What constitutes an 'empty' house? Etc. Etc.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby olive » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:46 am

I saw that article and thought the same. many unanswered questions.

might be a good idea in somewhere like Barcelona where Airbnb has skewed prices but I cannot see it working in a very rural area like ours or even in traditional Spanish small towns. The population of our nearest small town decreased by one in 2016 out of 20k people. there was however an egress of several hundred youngsters, presumably leaving for better work prospects. I think that was countered by more older folk quitting their campo homes and moving into nice marble palaces in the blocks of flats.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby TorreDelAguila » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:56 am

Something similar being discussed for London. Non-dom buying up of property, left empty for years in some cases.
A punitive tax needs levying on this, which only non-use or non-occupancy attracts.
The last thing that London needs is ownership of property as a commodity investment for absentee owners.
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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby chrissiehope » Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:08 pm

My holiday home in N Wales is going to be subject to a 'fine' of up to 25% of my Council tax, as holiday homes have been lumped in with properties that are left empty for a year or more :-(
I don't think it's fair, as we support local businesses & traders, but there's not much I can do about it..
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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Pamela1 » Wed Sep 19, 2018 2:08 pm

Quite a number of years ago hubby was told by some Spanish locals that the gov were cracking down on new builds in villages and towns.The general idea was to restore the run down derelict empty homes of which there are many in the village where he once lived.I have seen little evidence of that happening because there have been one or 2 new builds in the village
Many of the empty homes were inherited and were only ever occupied during the summer months in order to get away from the Granada summer heat, however many don't even do that anymore and the properties have been left to fall to pieces, makes me wonder about Spanish people's finances, are they so well off that they can afford to watch them go to rack and ruin without trying to sell them and benifit from some extra cash...Perhaps there is more to it but it beats me.
Even so..if all the empty properties were in good order and available to rent i doubt many would still be empty, the youth all run away to bigger cities.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Lavanda » Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:10 pm

Exactly Pamela. It doesn't really make sense in small, rural villages where some families own several, falling-down, houses and where there are no homeless people sleeping on the streets. I think this story needs a bit more of an explanation. In the north of Extremadura, in the Sierra de Gata, for example, villages are being depopulated on a huge scale. Descargamaría had over 2,000 inhabitants in 1900. It now has about 150. Years ago there were a lot of people living in one house but, even so, there are a lot of empty houses in the village today yet no one wants to live in a place with no work.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Manchesteral » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:45 pm

The problem with many properties in Spain is that having been passed down to the offspring, who in turn have more offspring the collective shares in the property eventually become worthless, an example, Paco (name change to protect the identity) :-) passes away and his four kids each have two kids, the property is now owned by four people who can either (a) sell it collectively or (b) opt to pass their shares onto their kids, the property which may have been worth €100000 to Paco is suddenly worth only €25000 to each of the inheritants, the problem now is that two of those owners may be willing to sell, the other two however are not, saying that they want to pass their shares onto their own children which would be then worth only €12500 to their children, this can go on for years until the property becomes unsaleable or uninhabitable!

I speak from personal experience, I tried to buy a bungalow in Calahonda 25 years ago and there were then 4 owners (both parents had died) 2 of the brothers refused, it has now been sold by the one remaining owner (all the others died without leaving stipulations about inheritence) and they were all childless.

Spanish people are very stubborn about their property and it's perceived value to the point of stupidity !!

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Lavanda » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:39 am

Agree totally. We wanted to buy the finca next door and were negotiating with our neighbour but it turned out he had seven siblings, all with a share in the finca. The negotiations came to nothing and the finca is used for occasional cattle grazing and when this current generation dies it will be owned by over 20 people.

I wonder how many of the owners of the houses no one can agree to sell would be interested in restoring the properties so they can be rented out to people? I suspect, not many!

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Manchesteral » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:52 am

Spot on !

To extend this topic go to google street view "Alboreda" Las Palmas.

This is a street which 30 years ago was a thriving business area supporting many small businesses, bars,cafe's, restaurants and small local shops of all descriptions, until the arrival of two large shopping malls at either end of town, which of course has killed off many of these businesses.

The problem is that most of these empty spaces are now unrentable in fact the area does not attract much custom at all, much of the business has moved to the front line or close by.

A couple of years ago someone in the council suggested that these business premises could be turned into urban accomodation, the first problem was that a "committee" said "no" these premises are classed as commercial and cannot be re classified as housing !

Problem number two is that the owners of these premises believe that the rental values are still as high as they were previously and refuse to reduce the rents.

I had a discussion with the owner of one of these locale's and asked him why he didn't reduce the rent in order to attract small businessmen, his reply was that he could rent it out for €6-700 pm, the discussion ended with him shrugging and walking away after I pointed out that having been empty for 3 years he had already lost around €25000.00 where do you go with this kind of brick wall mentality ?

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Wicksey » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:01 pm

There are loads of empty locales here. Every block has bricked up units below and ones we have seen for rent have been so expensive you could never run a business and make a profit from it. We have always said that they should be made into housing, but instead more blocks of pisos are now being built. There seems to be a real building boom going on around here with old projects abandoned for years suddenly springing into life. I read that Torrox has been given permission to build 2300 new properties on previously abandoned sites. Goodness knows if there is a market for them all. In Nerja it is like the old days with properties in the old town being demolished and rebuilt all over the place.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Pamela1 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:17 pm

I'm all for properties in bad repair and past saving being demolished and being rebuilt, much better to clean up the community and keep it apt and vibrant than to think the answer is to put Wimpy homes on out of town suburbs.. which by the way are built in the style of cardboard rubbish..Well that's my take on the Uk...Sorry back on topic...Spain is fast becoming like the Uk, silly rows of new houses without any character.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Lavanda » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:58 pm

Slightly off-topic — but not that far — is the news that the Costa Brava is to have a building boom along one of its last unspoiled coastal areas. I'd post the link but 'lost it' but it was in the papers a few days ago with conservationists up in arms. So, one the one hand there's the plan to force rent old empty houses and on the other there is a building boom. It seems a bit of a confused housing policy to me.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Pamela1 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:41 pm

Lavanda, yes very confusing!..as a general rule i don't do the costas that much, an odd night stop over before a flight out of Malaga however i've seen many half build appartment blocks abandoned due to the boom and bust years, add those to the empty properties and there is no logic.We were in the presence of a family acquaintance last year who is an abogado, his view was that there would be another boom and bust, apparently Spanish banks haven't quite learnt their lesson and they are lending again to people who probably can't afford it in the long run...he said give it 10yrs and it will happen all over again.

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Lavanda » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:55 pm

It's crazy. Apparently, there's a big construction project planned for the Sotogrande area. The link, below, is from a property promotion company, I think, but it tells a similar story to other coastal areas around Spain:

https://expocostadelsol.com/developers- ... a-del-sol/

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby spanish_lad » Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:06 pm

i noticed three houses in alhaurin today that were previously concrete shells since i remember.. suddenly being built, brick walls going up (in surprisingly straight lines actually !! :lol: )
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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Manchesteral » Thu Jul 04, 2019 7:25 pm

Must have been done by British or German brickies :think: !!

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby Pamela1 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 10:26 am

Wouldn't bet on it Al, hard to find good quality skilled workmen these days who actually take pride in their work...I know 3 people who have bought new homes in different areas and all have reported many problems, electrics/plumbing etc etc..

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Re: Spanish government planning action on owners of empty homes

Postby spanish_lad » Mon Jul 08, 2019 5:08 pm

So apart from the people that I´ve seen (the houses are **still** under construction) ... have any "old" houses been renovated? I´ve not seen any. The old rock built houses with the roofs caved in are still there... rotting away.
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