Emergency in Spain

HOUSING EMERGENCY IN SPAIN FIRST PUBLICATION: December 2013 ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND UPDATED: November 2014 COORDINATION: Vanesa Valiño EDITORIAL TEAM: Adrià Alemany, Ada Colau, Irene Escorihuela, Agustín Odonia, Mercè Pidemont, Gerardo Pisarello, and Sílvia Vernia Trillo COORDINATION OF STATISTICS SECTION: Pablo Simón Cosano INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY: Mònica Clua and Mariona Ferrer Fons DESIGN AND LAYOUT: Águeda Bañón PHOTOGRAPHS: Albert García and Wikimedia PRINTING: Reial Color VIDEO PRODUCTION: Pau Faus, Ivan Domínguez, Xavi Andreu, and Silvia González Laá CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We want to recognise the enormous effort made by people affected by mortgages to change unjust regulations that are anomalous within the European context, as well as the thousands of activists who selflessly participate in this struggle. This study really could never have happened without the 11,000 people that responded to the survey, or without the bravery of Lina, Susana, Oscar, Mercedes, Sara, Clever, Vicente, and Rosa, who offered to tell their stories. Thank you all. Yes we can! 4 CONTENTS PRESENTATION................................................................................................................................................................ 7 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................ 9 I THE RIGHT TO DECENT HOUSING .......................................................................................................................... 21 01 The legal commitments of the Spanish government in terms of the right to housing and the prohibition of arbitrary evictions ..................................................................................................... 23 02 The development of housing rights and of the prohibition of arbitrary evictions .............................. 47 03 Recommendations for the public administrations with regard to housing and the prohibition of arbitrary evictions ..................................................................................................... 85 II LIVES AT STAKE ...........................................................................................................................................................97 01 Results of the survey conducted with mortgages victims ........................................................................ 99 02 In-depth interviews ...........................................................................................................................................125 III CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................................139 PresentatIOn The purpose of this report is to analyse the existing housing emergency in Spain from a human rights per- spective. Specifically, we study the regulation of foreclosures and evictions in terms of the legal commitments acquired by the State and the concrete impact this has on the families affected. The report consists of an introduction and two large sections. The introduction describes the main character- istics of urban and housing policy that have led to the current housing emergency. The first section, for its part, opens with an analysis of the role of the right to decent and adequate housing and of the prohibition of arbitrary evictions in the Spanish constitutional system, in international human rights law, and in the European Union. Then we look at the basic policy guidelines that establish these rights, both at the level of the State and the autonomous communities. In this section we include some responses from the public administrations in reaction to the housing crisis and concrete recommendations addressed to the Spanish State on the part of different national and international bodies. The second section aims to alleviate the absence of official data on the profile of people affected by foreclosure procedures and on the attitudes of different financial institutions in terms of this problem. With this objective, we will present the results of 11,000 surveys that reflect the concrete impact of the housing emergency on families and four in-depth interviews with people connected to the Platform of Mortgage Victims (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca – PAH). The report closes with a third section of conclusions and recommendations addressed to the public authorities. Informe 2013 | Emergencia habitacional en el estado español 8 INTRODUCTION THE ORIGIN OF THE PROBLEM: THE SPANISH URBAN PLANNING-REAL ESTATE-FINANCIAL MODEL Spanish urban policy has been characterised by treating In order to favour the growth of the real estate the construction of housing and infrastructure as a and financial markets, the housing policy of the last source of investment and speculation rather than 60 years has also promoted access to housing in terms of its link to people's needs. The housing through private ownership. Thus, through different market and the real estate sector in general have histor- formulas such as tax relief on purchases and gener- ically been based on the increase of land prices merely alised access to credit, private property has positioned by rendering it suitable for development. itself as the main type of tenure in detriment to other As indicated by Manuel Naredo, continuous land re- more accessible forms like renting, transfer of use, col- zoning, beyond urban planning and without consider- lective property, or surface rights. ing basic environmental sustainability criteria, the con- The current pre-eminence of homeownership, struction of housing exceeding disposable income and 83 per cent in comparison to 17 per cent in renting, independent of population growth, together with the contrasts with the volume of rental housing that char- destruction of heritage, represent constants in Span- acterised the scene until the "50s.4 This tendency to ish urban planning. This story begins during the Franco incentivise private property has also been a constant regime, is prolonged throughout the democratic transi- in recent decades in other European countries. Never- tion, and remains in force at present. It has been made theless, there are few cases in which private property possible thanks to two business sectors strongly com- is as widespread as in Spain.5 mitted to the expansion of the model, and closely linked In this way, the residential needs of the popula- to the public administrations: the real estate-construction have been subordinated on numerous occa- tion sector and the banking sector.1 sions to the interests of the banks and the large The relationship between construction com- real estate companies. Unlike the rest of the Europe- panies, the financial sector, and political parties an countries, even publicly subsidised housing (VPO in largely explains the main corruption processes Spanish) has been mainly offered through private own- that today are the object of criminal investiga- ership. What’s more, its promotion has corresponded tion.2 These processes have resulted in the re-zoning more to the will of stimulating the construction sec- of land originally intended for green spaces or public tor in periods of recession, than to facilitating access facilities, procedures of public works allocation that to decent housing for vulnerable groups.6 Hence, the involve sizeable cost overruns, and the construction public housing built during periods of economic of ghost housing complexes and airports, like those crisis has had the revival of economic growth and found in Castellón, Ciudad Real, or Lleida. At the mu- employment generation as its main objective, re- nicipal level, moreover, land re-zoning has functioned gardless of whether it was accessible or responded to as a way to overcome a financing system that disre- real housing needs. gards the economic needs of local authorities.3 Urban and housing policy, in short, has boosted 9 2013 | Housing emergency in Spain the creation of a housing stock that is incapable of ed. This disregard contrasts with the observ- attending to the needs of society. able tendency in other countries to consider non-occupancy as a pathological phenomenon, a) Firstly, there is no public rental housing stock that the eradication of which depends, among other would allow for access for lower-income groups: the elements, on the imposition of tax and non-tax percentage of subsidised rental housing does not penalties (in France, for example, housing be- reach even 2 per cent of the total, while the EU-15 longing to legal persons that remains empty for average is between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.7 more than 18 months can be seized). As a con- Rent allowances, for their part, are scarce and are sequence of all of this, Spain shows the highest linked to budgetary availability. percentage of empty housing in Europe: 13.7 a) Secondly, the private rental market is also insuf- per cent in comparison to 8 per cent in Germa- ficient (15 per cent of the total) or highly specu- ny, 6.3 per cent in France, or 1.5 per cent in the lative. Unlike countries like Germany or Holland, Netherlands.8 there are no limits on indiscriminate increases c) This panorama is completed with legislation that in rent. facilitates evictions, without taking into account b) Thirdly, the introduction of measures aimed the economic or familial situation of the people af- at fighting against unjustified non-occupancy fected and with no measures guided towards

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