The City Council of Amposta (Tarragona) will demand that Sareb hand over the management of nearly 150 empty homes that it has in the city.
"It is absurd," said the mayor, Adam Tomàs, recalling that the state company has received more than 74 billion euros since 2012 to rescue real estate assets considered 'toxic' in the hands of the banks.
The municipality has been included by the Government as an area with a stressed housing market and rental prices have skyrocketed in recent years.
According to Tomàs, the council currently has more than 200 housing requests on the table. The ERC municipal group, in the government team, will bring a motion to the next municipal plenary session to formally process the request.
As the mayor recalled, Sareb currently has 296 unoccupied properties in the city - including parking lots and commercial premises - of which 143 are unused homes. Of these, 136 apartments are located in six large blocks in the urban area.
These homes are the main bulk of the 250 unused apartments that currently exist in the city, including those in the hands of banks and large holders.
The tense situation in the real estate market, explained Tomàs, has worsened in recent years: in 2015, he stated, in the city there were 500 empty homes in the hands of large owners and of the same, double the number that currently exists. "During the last few years the rental price has doubled and banking entities and Sareb have gaps," he stressed.
More than 200 housing rental requests have accumulated on the table of the municipal housing service. Getting an apartment that a few years ago cost between 300 and 350 euros per month, can now skyrocket above 600. Tomàs believes that it is time to ask Sareb, which has been nourished by public capital contributions, to hand over management to the council. of these apartments and, thus, be able to remove pressure on the real estate market in the capital of Montsià.
The proposal, which will be conveyed through the plenary session, has also been previously raised by city councils in the metropolitan area of Barcelona as well as in different parliamentary initiatives. "The banks are not even aware of the properties they have and the jobs are not managed," he lamented.
Tomàs considers it "unfair" and a contradiction that, taking into account the multimillion-dollar contributions of public resources to Sareb, the council has been forced to exercise the right of first refusal or withdrawal in order to acquire the apartments that the state company or through agreements that They allow them to be put on the rental market. In the case of stressed municipalities, town councils and third sector entities can exercise these rights when empty homes are sold.
The council encountered a similar case in 2015, when it verified that the Catalan Housing Agency had up to 70 empty and unused apartments in the city. Some properties that, finally, they managed to manage thanks to an agreement with the Department of Territory.
