The Government of Spain will mobilize up to 50,000 Sareb homes for social and affordable rental

The Spanish Government wants to make a large number of homes owned by Sareb available to citizens for rent to vulnerable families at an affordable price. Land for the construction of new buildings, hospitals and schools or business projects will also be sold.

What is the Sareb

Sareb or Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Restructuración Bancaria is a company created by the Spanish State and other European authorities with the aim of recapitalizing the financial institutions that were most affected by the financial crisis of 2008. It is a company that absorbed all the impaired assets of these entities to manage and sell them in order to settle the loans and real estate in our portfolio and repay the debt guaranteed by the State.

Mobilization for the use of Sareb homes

Currently, Sareb has a housing stock of some 21,000 units that could be made available to the Autonomous Communities and Town Halls for sale and social use. In addition, it has another 14,000 already inhabited in which vulnerable families will be offered a social rental program and labor accompaniment. Added to the above, it has urban land on which approximately 15,000 homes can be built for affordable rent.

Therefore, the Spanish Government’s proposal in relation to Sareb homes is divided into three lines of action:

Housing for social use through sales agreements with Autonomous Communities and Town Halls. The 21,000 homes will be mobilized through sales agreements with different Communities and municipalities to allocate them to the social and affordable rental of their citizens.

Within this line of action there are agreements, for example, with the Valencian Community, Galicia and the Madrid City Council. In addition, different agreements are being negotiated with the Junta de Castilla y León, Catalonia or the Torrelavega City Council for the sale of different properties.

At the same time there will be different agreements through which housing for social use will be transferred with different Public Administrations and non-profit entities, with special attention to vulnerable groups and areas at risk of depopulation.

Social inclusion through housing. The 14,000 available homes that are already inhabited will be managed through a social rental and support strategy to achieve the inclusion of vulnerable families. In this way, social rental contracts will be offered to families taking into account their income level. In addition, they will be helped to regularize their situation, find a job or access social services and benefits such as the Minimum Vital Income.

This line of action already has the support of Sareb for more than 400 families and 2,000 social rental contracts after the identification of vulnerable families.

Assignment of developable land. In addition to the homes already built, developable land will also be made available for the construction of 15,000 homes that will be used for affordable rentals. The management of this project will be through public-private collaboration.

Sareb will also offer the Public Administrations, in addition to the land used for housing construction, land used for other purposes, such as the construction of hospitals or schools.

With the sale of the land, the Demographic Challenge Project is promoted, whose objective is the implementation of business and industrial projects in rural Spain.

The homes and land will be distributed asymmetrically and without following population criteria, but rather depend on the availability of the properties held by the financial institutions and absorbed by Sareb. Most of these assets are found in Catalonia, the Valencian Community and Andalusia.

Objectives of the new measures

With these three lines of action, the aim is to achieve:

Increase the public housing stock, which helps guarantee the constitutional right to housing.
Reduce inequality in access to decent housing, which currently stands at 70%.
Selling properties owned by Sareb to reduce the stock and the debt pending payment by the banks affected by the financial crisis, from which they were absorbed.
Facilitate access to housing and employment for vulnerable families. In this way, home and work rights are covered.
Help the implementation of business and industrial projects in areas with demographic problems in rural Spain.

The Government of Spain will mobilize up to 50,000 Sareb homes for social and affordable rental, articulating it into three axes or lines of action. Firstly, the sale of 21,000 homes to Autonomous Communities and Town Halls for social use. Secondly, 14,000 inhabited homes will be managed with a social rental strategy for vulnerable families who will be supported in their job search. Finally, developable land will be ceded for the construction of houses, schools or business projects.

Further information

This article is part of our service Real Estate Lawyer in Spain. Visit this section where you will find all the useful information on this topic, including a complete guide on How to buy a house in Spain.

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