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FTA "The problems the fines are intended to combat began in 2007, when the financial crisis brought an epidemic of foreclosures on homes across Spain. After a

FTA "The problems the fines are intended to combat began in 2007, when the financial crisis brought an epidemic of foreclosures on homes across Spain. After a nationwide wave of repossessions, banks found themselves the owners of newly vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted. Put off by the cost of renovations and wary of their potential obligations to rental tenants as landlords, many banks simply left their buildings empty, waiting for the market to bounce back so they could sell them at a higher price, or seeking permission for non-residential uses such as hotels."

cycrutchfield 8y ago
So isn’t the more salient point here that tenants’ rights are apparently so strong here that the owners would rather leave the properties vacant (and lose money) than rent them out to a new tenant? Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent?
- romwell 8y ago
  >Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent? Do you want slums? Because this is how you get slums.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    Do you want hyperbole? Because this is how you get hyperbole.
- lsiebert 8y ago
  Wait, in your view the banks are the victims? Banks wouldn't have these properties at all if they hadn't screwed the pooch financially with mortages. I find it offensive that after taking people's homes and properties, an immense transfer of wealth to them, they should allow them to sit empty, in order to turn a better profit on the misery they helped cause.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Banks lost money on most of those foreclosures, to the extent that some banks failed and others had to be recapitalized. It wasn't a transfer of wealth to them.
    - lsiebert 8y ago
      Losing money doesn't mean losing the underlying property. There were certainly some losers, but the vast majority of them were the people who lost their house, not the banks which foreclosed on them.
      - cycrutchfield 8y ago
        People that lost their house overpaid for real estate that they could not afford. It’s strange that you seem to assume that overburdened debtors are saints while overextended creditors are devils. Both parties made mistakes they should not have made, and both parties suffered rightly as a result.
        lsiebert 8y ago
        You realize banks were foreclosing on people who didn't even have mortgages, or never missed payments, and often on mortgages they didn't legally own, right? https://theintercept.com/2019/03/13/kamala-harris-mortage-crisis/ https://theintercept.com/2019/03/13/kamala-harris-mortage-cr...
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  >vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted Apparently not that many rights.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    I mean, the properties were foreclosed on. Not sure what else you would expect.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago
      If the leasor finds the business too difficult to do within the law then they should change businesses. That's how a healthy market works. In a normal, healthy industry, they would simply go bankrupt selling to those who can. But in this case, it's possible to sit on land with out utilizing it and actually gain wealth solely because of flaws in that market were land price raises due to other forces than their productive worth. Speculation, persons hiding money from their dubious governments, political influence etc. Sitting on under utilized land is as unproductive as paying people to not grow crops. Even more so since at least in agriculture this, very occasionally, makes sense. In addition in a growth area, much of the wealth created by those who developed it goes to those that impeded the development. This is exactly the wrong incentives, moving reward from the productive to the counter productive. So since the market is so seriously broken, producing a dangerous drag on the economy by making labor less and less mobile, there is no choice but to fix it with financial incentives and disincentives.
      - cycrutchfield 8y ago
        If the law is written in such a way that it disincentivizes people from conducting business (to the point where they would prefer instead to cease conducting business and lose money), then perhaps the law should be reconsidered because it's a bad law? Tenants rights laws in a lot of Europe are just plain ridiculous, and I can fully sympathize with property owners that would prefer to leave their property vacant instead of leasing it to a tenant-squatter.

cycrutchfield 8y ago

So isn’t the more salient point here that tenants’ rights are apparently so strong here that the owners would rather leave the properties vacant (and lose money) than rent them out to a new tenant? Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent?

romwell 8y ago
>Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent? Do you want slums? Because this is how you get slums.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  Do you want hyperbole? Because this is how you get hyperbole.
lsiebert 8y ago
Wait, in your view the banks are the victims? Banks wouldn't have these properties at all if they hadn't screwed the pooch financially with mortages. I find it offensive that after taking people's homes and properties, an immense transfer of wealth to them, they should allow them to sit empty, in order to turn a better profit on the misery they helped cause.
- nradov 8y ago
  Banks lost money on most of those foreclosures, to the extent that some banks failed and others had to be recapitalized. It wasn't a transfer of wealth to them.
  - lsiebert 8y ago
    Losing money doesn't mean losing the underlying property. There were certainly some losers, but the vast majority of them were the people who lost their house, not the banks which foreclosed on them.
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      People that lost their house overpaid for real estate that they could not afford. It’s strange that you seem to assume that overburdened debtors are saints while overextended creditors are devils. Both parties made mistakes they should not have made, and both parties suffered rightly as a result.
      - lsiebert 8y ago
        You realize banks were foreclosing on people who didn't even have mortgages, or never missed payments, and often on mortgages they didn't legally own, right? https://theintercept.com/2019/03/13/kamala-harris-mortage-crisis/ https://theintercept.com/2019/03/13/kamala-harris-mortage-cr...
TomMckenny 8y ago
>vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted Apparently not that many rights.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  I mean, the properties were foreclosed on. Not sure what else you would expect.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    If the leasor finds the business too difficult to do within the law then they should change businesses. That's how a healthy market works. In a normal, healthy industry, they would simply go bankrupt selling to those who can. But in this case, it's possible to sit on land with out utilizing it and actually gain wealth solely because of flaws in that market were land price raises due to other forces than their productive worth. Speculation, persons hiding money from their dubious governments, political influence etc. Sitting on under utilized land is as unproductive as paying people to not grow crops. Even more so since at least in agriculture this, very occasionally, makes sense. In addition in a growth area, much of the wealth created by those who developed it goes to those that impeded the development. This is exactly the wrong incentives, moving reward from the productive to the counter productive. So since the market is so seriously broken, producing a dangerous drag on the economy by making labor less and less mobile, there is no choice but to fix it with financial incentives and disincentives.
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      If the law is written in such a way that it disincentivizes people from conducting business (to the point where they would prefer instead to cease conducting business and lose money), then perhaps the law should be reconsidered because it's a bad law? Tenants rights laws in a lot of Europe are just plain ridiculous, and I can fully sympathize with property owners that would prefer to leave their property vacant instead of leasing it to a tenant-squatter.