You can't talk about a Housing law if it doesn't address the problem of illegal occupation, and with the rule approved on Thursday by Congress, there are no solutions to this problem, according to the opinion of the people. This is the premise from which the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, started yesterday on his fourth visit to Catalonia this April, after considering that employment has become a serious problem for home owners.
From Tarragona, Feijóo gave figures that, in his opinion, leave no room for doubt about the dimension of the problem. According to the leader of the opposition, there are between 48 and 50 occupations of houses every day, and half of these are in Catalonia. The PP has been characterized by its fight against the occupation throughout Spain, but especially in Catalonia. Xavier Albiol, who was mayor of Badalona and aspires to regain the mayorship, has always presented himself as a leader against this illegal practice.
And it was referred to by Feijóo, who criticizes Sánchez that the Housing law, approved on Thursday, protects the occupant, to the detriment of the owner of the occupied flat. He also criticized that there is not a single measure in the law to pursue the "mafias who are often behind these occupations".
After a visit to the surroundings of an occupied house in the Torreforta neighborhood of Tarragona with the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, and the candidate for the mayor of Tarragona, María Mercè Martorell, the leader of the PP pointed out that the new law means that "we are worse than yesterday", because it is an "interventionist, populist and unserious" rule, which is simply "the price that Pedro Sánchez had to pay to continue in Moncloa".
For this reason, the president of the popular demanded that the owners of houses that are occupied do not pay municipal taxes, mainly the IBI, while they cannot use the house. At the same time that he demanded that the occupants who have illegally usurped the house not be allowed to register at this address, because this represents, according to Feijóo, a "double injustice" for the owner, due to the rights that the occupant acquires with the register
To these measures are added those that the president of the PP has already presented before to achieve an express vacancy of the homes, with a deadline of 24 hours, providing the security forces with the means to carry out the evictions.
Feijóo's criticism of the Housing law is not limited to employment, but to "interventionist" aspects and to Sánchez's promises of new residential developments which are, he warned, simple "castles in the air".
The PP proposes a State pact and specific measures: 1,000 euros for the first expenses, to guarantee 15% of the mortgage or to put 10% of the public land to build rental housing, at an assessed price that is between 30% and 40% cheaper than the market price. Likewise, Feijóo proposes measures to ease the rise in mortgages, such as creating a solidarity fund.
