The plan announced to great fanfare by the Government to make 21,000 Sareb flats available to regional and local administrations has not caused the town halls to throw rockets. At the moment, caution reigns and rather the concern about how and who will finance the development of some homes that mostly need extensive rehabilitation or are occupied. In Catalonia, according to data from Sareb itself, there are 13,499 flats available, more than half in the Barcelona metropolitan area. Its deteriorated state is another matter entirely.
In l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, the second most populous city in Catalonia, the entity created in 2012 to manage and sell the assets of banks that had received public aid has 563 homes, according to its website. It is the second municipality with the most apartments owned by the so-called bad bank, only behind Barcelona. "That housing with social rental is put on the market is good news, but we are waiting for what the management model will be like," acknowledge municipal sources.
The announcement comes with the elections just around the corner and many unanswered questions. “Will it be managed by the Government or by a property manager in collaboration with the municipalities? Will assignments be made to the consistories?" They ask themselves in l'Hospitalet.
In Badalona, on calle Lleó Fontova, Sareb has 51 of the 650 flats available in the municipality. There, the residents live oblivious to the media commotion and explain that "almost half of the floors" are illegally occupied by family clans that generate numerous coexistence problems. Others say that they are in such poor condition that "they are uninhabitable."
"It's a problem because we don't know who to turn to to complain", detail some tenants who say they are paying "about 400 euros to the bank for a 60-square-meter apartment" without knowing their landlord directly. Most of the Sareb homes in this area are inhabited by foreigners, especially of Pakistani and Indian origin, who "pay a derisory amount but it is not known to whom," the residents say.
The neighborhoods where there is a greater concentration of bad bank properties in Badalona are Llefià, La Salut and Sant Roc. The possible transfer of the apartments, for the mayor, Rubén Guijarro, "is very good news" despite the fact that his government has already begun to manage the social housing park with the acquisition of 40 apartments from the emergency table and the impulse of new developments: 117 in the Colina area and 62 in Antoni Bori street, on the seafront. Another possibility that they will analyze is the purchase of one of Sareb's 11 empty lots to try to carry out other developments.
Each municipality presents a different casuistry: some have previously signed collaboration agreements with Sareb – with more than less difficulties. Barcelona was the first to do so. Of the 767 apartments that Sareb has in the city, "we estimate that only fifty are empty, the rest are either rented or are in very poor condition", maintains the Councilor for Housing, Lucía Martín. The first agreement for the assignment of 200 homes for social rental dates from 2016 and last year they managed to get Sareb to offer and manage social rentals for 300 families who already lived in apartments they owned.
The first agreement established that the rehabilitation of the flats would be financed in equal parts between the City Council and Sareb, with a ceiling of 7,000 euros by the bad bank, and the contracts would be valid for eight years, which they hope to renew. "Negotiating with Sareb is very slow, but it is true that from 2021, when it changed its management model, things improved," says Martín. Municipal and entity representatives meet every month to monitor the situation.
After the agreement with Barcelona, others arrived, such as the one in Santa Coloma, which in 2021 signed an agreement to partially reform 88 apartments with Sareb and allocate them to vulnerable families through a social rental with a four-year contract that can be extended for another four. "We will see how this agreement adapts to the announced measure," says Antoni Suárez, councilor for Housing in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, who warns that the City Council "could not suddenly assume the flow of 250 useful flats" that the housing manager claims to have. real estate assets in the city of Besòs. The investment required to set up these homes turns their transfer into a poisoned gift.
For the moment, the Santa Coloma agreement with Sareb makes it easier for the public company Gramepark to locate the properties that may be available to the city and refer those that are occupied by vulnerable families, some 60, to the care services. apartments for which they will negotiate a rent. Suárez acknowledges that they have located another 10 apartments that they have had to reject "because of the high cost of their reform." He also points out that "since the City Council signed the agreement, there have been no evictions in Sareb properties".
L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and, later, Calafell are other municipalities that have signed agreements with Sareb. "In 2020 we signed the transfer of 37 apartments in different phases, and the truth is that we have managed to manage 13", they affirm from the Calafell Town Hall. They come up against a stubborn reality: apartments that are occupied or that require a large investment to move into. The building at number 48 of Rambla Mossèn Jaume Tovella is an example of this. "They are perfectly located and in a reasonable state, but the entire block is occupied and is a source of problems," they admit. The difficulties in recovering apartments from Sareb are such that the City Council opted for collaboration with a private developer to promote the construction of a block with 110 apartments that will be used for affordable rent.
