Streamline the procedures and unify the criteria to be able to act with the maximum forcefulness in the event of occupation of a municipal space. With this objective, Barcelona City Council has just approved an action protocol to remind its staff how to act when an illegal occupation occurs in properties they own. The protocol defines the steps to follow and warns that failure to comply may lead to accounting and even criminal liability for the managers of these public spaces, whether a warehouse, a premises or a disused building.
The protocol, aimed at all bodies and entities dependent on the City Council that manage municipally owned real estate, establishes the guidelines to carry out “in a coordinated manner and without delay” the actions necessary to defend municipal interests, “with the objective of preserving the heritage and claiming damages that may occur to the property and the municipal treasury,” the document details.
Municipal sources assure that there is no increase in occupations in their premises "but it was important to remember and unify the criteria because not all municipal employees know how to act."
The protocol has a double intention. On the one hand, the immediate complaint and the opening of the file with which the unemployment must begin. On the other hand, it also aims to prevent situations of occupation from consolidating “and becoming a risk for the occupants themselves, for the neighbors or for any third party, to the extent that a totally inappropriate use of the space is often made. occupied space".
Occupations in municipally owned homes are excluded from this protocol since there are specific regulations for these situations. The document calls on the Housing management and the Municipal Institute of Habitatge and Rehabilitation to promote the drafting of their own protocol.
The new document can be used by all organizations and entities dependent on the City Council that are responsible for the management of municipally owned real estate, whether in the public domain or patrimonial. “The regulations already exist, but we detected the need to update content because, for whatever reasons, some workers are unaware of the procedures and that makes the process slower; For example, the City Council as an administration has legal capacity, it can mobilize the Urban Police, it does not need judicial authorizations like private owners; “We can act and we have the resources to do so.”
The protocol also highlights that it is the responsibility of municipal employees to try to recover the value of what has been lost during an occupation. The document establishes one by one the regulated actions and procedures, from the notification of an occupation to the confirmation, the identification of the occupants and the verification of whether a risk situation exists.
The process materializes with the opening of a file that includes the actions to be carried out to recover possession of the assets and compensate the City Council for all damages that the occupation may have caused. “All expenses arising from the recovery of possession, any damage that has been detected, the consumption of water, electricity, gas or other supplies or any other expense will be included.” In this sense, the municipal manager is obliged to request and claim from the occupants all the damages caused by the occupation, urging all necessary judicial and administrative actions. The protocol, on which the technicians have been working for more than a year, has already been sent to all municipal managers and legal representatives of the City Council.
