Catalonia will force owners to offer social rent for ‘squatters’

The Parliament approved this Wednesday the new Catalan anti-eviction law that takes over from the one annulled a year ago by the Constitutional Court due to a formal defect and that increases the obligations of large holders before delinquent tenants who prove their economic vulnerability.

In this case, companies with more than 10 flats or individuals with more than 15 will be obliged to offer social rent, even if the occupants of the dwelling do not have a contract because they have squatted the property. And the obligation is extended over time: five years if the large holder is a natural person; seven years, if it is a legal person, and twelve years if it is a bank or an investment fund.

The new law discards the mechanism of the right to compensation for large holders, but promotes that, in exchange for curbing evictions, large holders not linked to banks or investment funds may request the Generalitat to rent the house where a family at risk lives at an official protection price, leaving them as tenants with rent Social. That is why it will be the Generalitat, through the Housing Agency of Catalonia, who will assume the rents of these families, either through aid or as a tenant of these homes.

The new norm, which also contemplates the expropriation of flats that have more than two years unjustifiably emptywent ahead with the support of the driving groups -ERC, Junts, the CUP and En Comú Podem- and the PSC, while Vox voted against and Cs and the PP did not vote, after they asked to take the law to the Consell de Garanties Estatutàries (CGE) and that the Bureau rejected it.

The members of the ERC, Junts and CUP Table refused to admit this request from Cs and the PP for processing, arguing that the Parliament’s Regulations state that in initiatives signed by spokespersons of the groups, that of the Mixed Group “It is only counted if it is made up of a minimum of five members”, something that does not currently happen, since the PP has three deputies.

Faced with this situation, Cs reserved the right to go to court, while the PP announced that they will file an appeal before the Constitutional Court (TC) for this decision of the Table, which it believes has set a “very dangerous precedent” and that has violated the rights of the deputies, according to the popular deputy Lorena Roldán.

After the approval of the law in plenary session, representatives of anti-eviction entities were photographed on the stairs of honor of the Parliament together with the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès; that of the Chamber, Laura Borràs; the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà; that of Social Rights, Violant Cervera, and deputies of the groups that have supported the law.

risk fund

The plenary session of Parliament also gave the green light to the Bill for the creation of the Complementary Risk Fund of the Generalitat, endowed with €10 million, which was created to counter guarantee the guarantees issued by the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) for the bonds of 5.4 million euros that the Court of Auditors imposed on 34 former positions of the Government for the foreign policy of the Generalitat linked to the procés. It was with the favorable votes of PSC, ERC, Junts, CUP and comuns.

The decree creating the fund was already approved in plenary session in July, but the Parliament decided to process it as a bill to incorporate the modifications suggested by the Consell de Garanties Estatutàries (CGE).