Owners of more than half a thousand houses in the Community of Valencia are facing a newly created tax payment. They are in the hands of large investment funds, not individuals. These are completely enclosed, tenantless buildings, something that has already been effectively penalized by the Generalitat. It’s a tax in the Law on the Social Function of Housing, which the ministry, headed by Héctor Illueca of Unides Podem, trusts to start rolling in from December, penalizing each of those months. In 2022, the properties were not inhabited. Currently, 532 residences are registered in the register, where owners of more than 10 properties must notify the Administration which floors are not used.
The regulatory framework to start implementing this tax is prepared, in the absence of the Ministry of Finance, by developing the formula by which the tax will be charged, with Arcadi Spain at the helm. Its amount will vary depending on the volume of land available to homeowners as a whole. Thus, up to 5,000 square meters, a fee of 7.5 Euro per meter will be paid. From 40,000 meters, the amount goes up to 22.5 euros per square meter, with a full charge of 600,000 euros. In the regulation, it is stated that fines of up to 300,000 euros are paid to large property owners who do not notify the Administration and do not notify the houses that have been vacant for at least a year.
The state of Alicante is currently the state with the largest concentration of properties, with a total of 219 properties registered with the Generalitat; Valencia with her 184; Castellón with 129, according to data from the Generalitat’s Directorate General for Emergency Resettlement. The result has been the first era of communications this year, so the figure is expected to continue to increase towards the end of the year.
Mobilizing resources to deal with the so-called housing emergency is one of the strategic axes of Botànic, and in particular Unides Podem, which supports the Second Vice-President’s cause. The political agenda is to try to mobilize more public and private resources to facilitate access to housing, in any case to rein in speculative practices, and banking institutions and vulture funds are on the agenda. In fact, this is exactly the purpose of the tax, which will begin to be collected from the owners of large apartments and can be avoided when the house is rented. To this end, the Department of the Branch has promoted programs such as my Xarxa Lloga, which seeks to facilitate citizens’ access to rental housing and mobilize uninhabited properties in the Community at affordable prices. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 unused homes held by financial institutions in the autonomous region, so the number of registered so far seems rather low.
However, Generalitat now plans to go a step further, and the Ministry of Housing is drafting a law recommending that large property owners be compelled to temporarily transfer properties that have not been inhabited for at least two years.