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I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property

I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. Everybody knows the problem exists, most people take extra, otherwise not necessary measures against it. The leftist govt adds to the problem somehow rationalizing it and trying to channel poor's frustration onto middle-class, while the actual abusers, who are well aware of the problem, stay safe.

xchip 2y ago
Sources?
pimterry 2y ago
> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupaciones-espana-denuncias-condenas/ https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-cae-la-usurpacion-ilegal-de-vivienda-a-niveles-de-hace-dos-anos/ https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c...) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allanamiento de morada) and 95% of cases are occupation of an empty and unused house/shop/office (usurpación de vivienda). That includes unused commercial properties, and homes that are neither rented nor used by the owner. * Note that a personally used holiday homes are also considered as a person's residence, so any occupation there would also come into that first 5%: https://www.ocu.org/fincas-y-casas/gestion/gestion-patrimonial/analisis/2020/09/policia-y-ocupacion https://www.ocu.org/fincas-y-casas/gestion/gestion-patrimoni.... That is to say: it is a problem (the 500 - 1000 cases per year nationwide of occupation of people's homes is clearly problematic) but it's not a really widespread problem for most middle-class people (the vast majority of people even in the middle classes do not own totally unused property). It is a significant concern if you're a commercial landlord with any shops & offices between rental contracts, or if you're directly investing in property as pure speculation, without using it at all (which imo should be discouraged regardless - although I'd rather punitively tax it). In the really problematic 5% case of people's homes, my understanding is that the law has tightened significantly, and if you can show that you're registered as actually living there, in theory they will evict okupas within 24 hours (I don't know how well that works in practice though).
- rudnevr 2y ago
  Thanks for the info. It's not that widespread, yes, but due to its gravity it's intoxicating and polarizing the public. From what I observe, the amount of cases could have dropped down because many people choose to not buy or somehow shield their property (sometimes just filling windows with bricks, for example, which looks weird). So I'm not sure it's because the okupas/govt/police somehow changed the direction, it's just like the people get better at protecting themselves. Btw, bying an apartment in Barcelona costs you 10% tax already, that probably discourages most speculation (and the prices have been stagnant for a couple of years).
  - rolandog 2y ago
    > Btw, bying an apartment in Barcelona costs you 10% tax already, that probably discourages most speculation (and the prices have been stagnant for a couple of years). I'm not too sure those measures deter those who are filthy-rich. Would you agree that it can be viewed as the cost of doing business... and, worst — that it could price out small competitors (allowing for the formation of cartels of big landlords)?
    - rudnevr 2y ago
      nope, there's no cartels of big landlords in Bcn, that's a leftist fantasy
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into their own residence. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of those empty homes being squatted in are felt as personal attacks and violations by the absentee owner, which would make it feel like a much bigger problem for individuals if you move in circles where people own empty properties.
dr__mario 2y ago
Can you define that "middle-class", please? If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class.
- kgwgk 2y ago
  What makes you think that the problem concerns mainly - let alone only - people who live purely from housing?
- rudnevr 2y ago
  In the Mediterranean like in any resort area a lot of people live from housing, which requires not only owning, but also keeping it attractive, complying with local regulations, looks and the culture. It's nothing like rental company in NYC owning a garage full of rats, and charging a arm and a leg. Middle class is a family from Zaragoza having a vacation house in Maresme or some extra property in Alicante which were sold for like 20-30K a few years ago, and then occupied, which took them a few months to evict. The collaboration between scary deoccupying folks and okupas should be common, even if hard to prove, and it's mostly directed on people like this. Many people don't go to police and prefer to pay off just not to see their property ruined.
  - wyre 2y ago
    Not arguing that owning property in a tourist area requires work (unless you're paying a property manager to do it for you), but I could never imagine owning a vacation property to be squarely middle class. Upper-middle class, at the very least.
    - nec4b 2y ago
      Building a small house or cabin in the woods with the help of friends and family is an upper-middle class thing for you, really?
      - wyre 2y ago
        That is absolutely not the same thing as GP is mentioning and you know it. >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Aurornis 2y ago
> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in to the empty house, changed the locks, and started occupying it. I remember being shocked that someone could do this and be protected under the law. He had to follow a formal eviction process, even though they broke into his house and never had any agreement. The perpetrators were known to the police as professional squatters and they advised him on all the things to avoid doing so they wouldn’t countersue him, which was mind blowing. Even weirder was to watch the reaction on his social media when he posted the story. A lot of people, including many of his friends, jumped to defending squatter’s rights or trying to make some broader point about inequality. There’s something about squatting that appeals to people who think it’s always a RobinHood situation: Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. It’s more fun to imagine these people as noble warriors against an unjust society, rather than seem them as people abusing the laws for personal gain at the expense of random victims. Even here on HN there are comments trying to downplay the issue by portraying the victims as mostly wealthy or landlords, which are presumably acceptable victims to people who like these kind of narratives.
- zrn900 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Aurornis 2y ago
    > Yeah, it would be shocking to those who are used to the godly rights of the property owners on their property like in the US. The story you’re replying to happened in the United States. There was nothing noble about it. The squatters stole someone’s house and prevented them from occupying it. This wasn’t noble squatters versus evil landlords leaving houses empty. My friend literally bought a house for his family and someone squatted in it before he could move in. Amazing that such a comment would come along and prove the point I was making: Some people can look an obvious injustice dead on, ignore the details, inject their own imagined narrative with victim and perpetrator reversed, and claim moral superiority for the perpetrator.
zrn900 2y ago
> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. Both of those groups serve the purpose of forcing the real estate owners to actually use their real estate instead of letting them rot to benefit from value appreciation like in the US - one of the main reasons of the housing crisis in the US. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homes-for-sale-affordable-housing-prices/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homes-for-sale-affordable-housi... So yes, they actually do serve a robin-hood purpose.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > real estate owners to actually use their real estate instead of letting them rot to benefit from value appreciation This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it. Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”. If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all.
  - zrn900 2y ago
    > This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it I didn't arrive at anything. Its the actual reality of what happens here on the ground. You not being able to imagine something like that because of your cultural bias does not make it any less real. > Real estate is expensive to maintain Not as much as the value appreciation. > If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all. Speak for yourself. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-crisis-u-flipped-upside-214713617.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-crisis-u-flipped-upsi...
  - orthecreedence 2y ago
    > Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”. In my neighborhood, there are at least 3 unoccupied homes within a 3 minute walk. We live in an area with accelerated entropy (the forest) and the homes are, by any useful metric, rotting. I will let you guess if in the past 10 years the value of the homes has gone up or down. I would love if someone, squatters or not, lived in those properties. I understand things are different in different places, but where I live we have unoccupied homes that could house people. As it is, some private owner swings by once a year to throw another tarp on the roof and then fucks off, leaving an empty home to rot during a housing crisis. Yay, property rights.
TotalCrackpot 2y ago
Is the worst you could say about anarchists is that they smoke weed? That's somewhat funny, please consider that for anarchists implementing their property norm of usufruct is a part of the social revolution through direct action, it's not really meant to me nice to the "middle class" because anarchists are revolutionaries who want to abolish the class society :)
- rudnevr 2y ago
  I was actually kind:) Bad hygiene, unpaid debts, delinquency, women and child abuse, antisemitism can easily be added to the picture.
  - TotalCrackpot 2y ago
    Most anarchists are feminists and they are against anti-semitism. Historically a few theoreticians were anti-Semites, but most were not. You seem to just be dehumanizing other people who have different views than you, which is disgusting and not something you should be proud of.
    - rudnevr 2y ago
      you don't even seem to understand what dehumanizing means
      - TotalCrackpot 2y ago
        Can you explain why you think that? I will gladly learn something new from you.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > are revolutionaries who want to abolish the class society Also, apparently the construction of new housing and maintenance of older stock. So that we would be living in abandoned ruins and huts in a few decades if they got their way...
kerkeslager 2y ago
> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. Ah yes, the not-so-rich middle class who can afford to own houses they leave vacant. Is it your opinion that smoking weed makes someone's political opinions disingenuous or that smoking weed means they deserve to be homeless? What's your solution to the lack of housing? Anarcho-capitalist HN is always worried about the unintended consequences of laws but never seems to be concerned about the intended consequences of the law, or have any other ways to solve that problem. It begins to sound like you just don't care about homelessness.
- rudnevr 2y ago
  Smoking weed is neutral. Smoking weed anarchist is a demographic which tends to justify its modus vivendi pretending they have views. They aren't against private property. They're against other people's private property. My solution to the lack of housing is to build more housing or having fewer people, it's that trivial and obvious.
  - kerkeslager 2y ago
    > Smoking weed anarchist is a demographic which tends to justify its modus vivendi pretending they have views. They aren't against private property. They're against other people's private property. Or, maybe they're just homeless and using politics to feel better about what they have to do to get homes. Let's face it, smoking weed has nothing to do with this conversation, it's just a way to discredit people. > My solution to the lack of housing is to build more housing or having fewer people, it's that trivial and obvious. "Having fewer people"? I have to say I'm pretty concerned about what policy decisions you think that entails. Sadly, building more housing doesn't solve the problem. You have to build more housing and prevent it from being removed in the same way housing is currently removed from the market by landlords and speculators. And... where are you going to build it? Property rights apply to land too, right? And you're going to fund this... how? Progressive taxation? Well, it turns out that when you start talking details, a lot of the people who are really concerned about property rights just happen to think all the things that would be necessarily to actually provide homes for the homeless are too expensive, too restrictive, etc. So when it comes down to it, they're for getting rid of the bad solution for homelessness (squatting) and providing no better solution, because their concern was never homelessness. Ultimately, you're right: the solution to homelessness is homes. But, I'm frankly pretty cynical given decades of homeless policy which solves how homelessness affects rich people and doesn't solve homelessness. If your main concern about homeless people is that they're squatting, then I just don't trust that you're actually concerned with solving homelessness. That's why I'd like to see homelessness solved first. Once that's solved, we can solve the squatting problem, if it even still exists. Because doing otherwise starts to sound like yet another attempt to sideline the issue of homelessness.
unixhero 2y ago
I read somewhere that the situation is similar in Portgual with unused housing.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> ... and reality of weed smoking anarchists Mother of our kid owned a house in Spain. Two houses next to her house was an "okupa" but... They were gypsies. They broke in and two first thing they did: - change the locks - put pitbulls (with a 's') in the garden They were not nice people. Took six months but they eventually got kicked out.

xchip 2y ago

Sources?

pimterry 2y ago

> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupaciones-espana-denuncias-condenas/ https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-cae-la-usurpacion-ilegal-de-vivienda-a-niveles-de-hace-dos-anos/ https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c...) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allanamiento de morada) and 95% of cases are occupation of an empty and unused house/shop/office (usurpación de vivienda). That includes unused commercial properties, and homes that are neither rented nor used by the owner. * Note that a personally used holiday homes are also considered as a person's residence, so any occupation there would also come into that first 5%: https://www.ocu.org/fincas-y-casas/gestion/gestion-patrimonial/analisis/2020/09/policia-y-ocupacion https://www.ocu.org/fincas-y-casas/gestion/gestion-patrimoni.... That is to say: it is a problem (the 500 - 1000 cases per year nationwide of occupation of people's homes is clearly problematic) but it's not a really widespread problem for most middle-class people (the vast majority of people even in the middle classes do not own totally unused property). It is a significant concern if you're a commercial landlord with any shops & offices between rental contracts, or if you're directly investing in property as pure speculation, without using it at all (which imo should be discouraged regardless - although I'd rather punitively tax it). In the really problematic 5% case of people's homes, my understanding is that the law has tightened significantly, and if you can show that you're registered as actually living there, in theory they will evict okupas within 24 hours (I don't know how well that works in practice though).

rudnevr 2y ago
Thanks for the info. It's not that widespread, yes, but due to its gravity it's intoxicating and polarizing the public. From what I observe, the amount of cases could have dropped down because many people choose to not buy or somehow shield their property (sometimes just filling windows with bricks, for example, which looks weird). So I'm not sure it's because the okupas/govt/police somehow changed the direction, it's just like the people get better at protecting themselves. Btw, bying an apartment in Barcelona costs you 10% tax already, that probably discourages most speculation (and the prices have been stagnant for a couple of years).
- rolandog 2y ago
  > Btw, bying an apartment in Barcelona costs you 10% tax already, that probably discourages most speculation (and the prices have been stagnant for a couple of years). I'm not too sure those measures deter those who are filthy-rich. Would you agree that it can be viewed as the cost of doing business... and, worst — that it could price out small competitors (allowing for the formation of cartels of big landlords)?
  - rudnevr 2y ago
    nope, there's no cartels of big landlords in Bcn, that's a leftist fantasy
lazyasciiart 2y ago
In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into their own residence. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of those empty homes being squatted in are felt as personal attacks and violations by the absentee owner, which would make it feel like a much bigger problem for individuals if you move in circles where people own empty properties.

dr__mario 2y ago

Can you define that "middle-class", please? If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class.

kgwgk 2y ago
What makes you think that the problem concerns mainly - let alone only - people who live purely from housing?
rudnevr 2y ago
In the Mediterranean like in any resort area a lot of people live from housing, which requires not only owning, but also keeping it attractive, complying with local regulations, looks and the culture. It's nothing like rental company in NYC owning a garage full of rats, and charging a arm and a leg. Middle class is a family from Zaragoza having a vacation house in Maresme or some extra property in Alicante which were sold for like 20-30K a few years ago, and then occupied, which took them a few months to evict. The collaboration between scary deoccupying folks and okupas should be common, even if hard to prove, and it's mostly directed on people like this. Many people don't go to police and prefer to pay off just not to see their property ruined.
- wyre 2y ago
  Not arguing that owning property in a tourist area requires work (unless you're paying a property manager to do it for you), but I could never imagine owning a vacation property to be squarely middle class. Upper-middle class, at the very least.
  - nec4b 2y ago
    Building a small house or cabin in the woods with the help of friends and family is an upper-middle class thing for you, really?
    - wyre 2y ago
      That is absolutely not the same thing as GP is mentioning and you know it. >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Aurornis 2y ago

> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in to the empty house, changed the locks, and started occupying it. I remember being shocked that someone could do this and be protected under the law. He had to follow a formal eviction process, even though they broke into his house and never had any agreement. The perpetrators were known to the police as professional squatters and they advised him on all the things to avoid doing so they wouldn’t countersue him, which was mind blowing. Even weirder was to watch the reaction on his social media when he posted the story. A lot of people, including many of his friends, jumped to defending squatter’s rights or trying to make some broader point about inequality. There’s something about squatting that appeals to people who think it’s always a RobinHood situation: Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. It’s more fun to imagine these people as noble warriors against an unjust society, rather than seem them as people abusing the laws for personal gain at the expense of random victims. Even here on HN there are comments trying to downplay the issue by portraying the victims as mostly wealthy or landlords, which are presumably acceptable victims to people who like these kind of narratives.

zrn900 2y ago
[flagged]
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > Yeah, it would be shocking to those who are used to the godly rights of the property owners on their property like in the US. The story you’re replying to happened in the United States. There was nothing noble about it. The squatters stole someone’s house and prevented them from occupying it. This wasn’t noble squatters versus evil landlords leaving houses empty. My friend literally bought a house for his family and someone squatted in it before he could move in. Amazing that such a comment would come along and prove the point I was making: Some people can look an obvious injustice dead on, ignore the details, inject their own imagined narrative with victim and perpetrator reversed, and claim moral superiority for the perpetrator.

zrn900 2y ago

Aurornis 2y ago
> real estate owners to actually use their real estate instead of letting them rot to benefit from value appreciation This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it. Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”. If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all.
- zrn900 2y ago
  > This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it I didn't arrive at anything. Its the actual reality of what happens here on the ground. You not being able to imagine something like that because of your cultural bias does not make it any less real. > Real estate is expensive to maintain Not as much as the value appreciation. > If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all. Speak for yourself. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-crisis-u-flipped-upside-214713617.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-crisis-u-flipped-upsi...
- orthecreedence 2y ago
  > Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”. In my neighborhood, there are at least 3 unoccupied homes within a 3 minute walk. We live in an area with accelerated entropy (the forest) and the homes are, by any useful metric, rotting. I will let you guess if in the past 10 years the value of the homes has gone up or down. I would love if someone, squatters or not, lived in those properties. I understand things are different in different places, but where I live we have unoccupied homes that could house people. As it is, some private owner swings by once a year to throw another tarp on the roof and then fucks off, leaving an empty home to rot during a housing crisis. Yay, property rights.

TotalCrackpot 2y ago

Is the worst you could say about anarchists is that they smoke weed? That's somewhat funny, please consider that for anarchists implementing their property norm of usufruct is a part of the social revolution through direct action, it's not really meant to me nice to the "middle class" because anarchists are revolutionaries who want to abolish the class society :)

rudnevr 2y ago
I was actually kind:) Bad hygiene, unpaid debts, delinquency, women and child abuse, antisemitism can easily be added to the picture.
- TotalCrackpot 2y ago
  Most anarchists are feminists and they are against anti-semitism. Historically a few theoreticians were anti-Semites, but most were not. You seem to just be dehumanizing other people who have different views than you, which is disgusting and not something you should be proud of.
  - rudnevr 2y ago
    you don't even seem to understand what dehumanizing means
    - TotalCrackpot 2y ago
      Can you explain why you think that? I will gladly learn something new from you.
Wytwwww 2y ago
> are revolutionaries who want to abolish the class society Also, apparently the construction of new housing and maintenance of older stock. So that we would be living in abandoned ruins and huts in a few decades if they got their way...

kerkeslager 2y ago

rudnevr 2y ago
Smoking weed is neutral. Smoking weed anarchist is a demographic which tends to justify its modus vivendi pretending they have views. They aren't against private property. They're against other people's private property. My solution to the lack of housing is to build more housing or having fewer people, it's that trivial and obvious.
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  > Smoking weed anarchist is a demographic which tends to justify its modus vivendi pretending they have views. They aren't against private property. They're against other people's private property. Or, maybe they're just homeless and using politics to feel better about what they have to do to get homes. Let's face it, smoking weed has nothing to do with this conversation, it's just a way to discredit people. > My solution to the lack of housing is to build more housing or having fewer people, it's that trivial and obvious. "Having fewer people"? I have to say I'm pretty concerned about what policy decisions you think that entails. Sadly, building more housing doesn't solve the problem. You have to build more housing and prevent it from being removed in the same way housing is currently removed from the market by landlords and speculators. And... where are you going to build it? Property rights apply to land too, right? And you're going to fund this... how? Progressive taxation? Well, it turns out that when you start talking details, a lot of the people who are really concerned about property rights just happen to think all the things that would be necessarily to actually provide homes for the homeless are too expensive, too restrictive, etc. So when it comes down to it, they're for getting rid of the bad solution for homelessness (squatting) and providing no better solution, because their concern was never homelessness. Ultimately, you're right: the solution to homelessness is homes. But, I'm frankly pretty cynical given decades of homeless policy which solves how homelessness affects rich people and doesn't solve homelessness. If your main concern about homeless people is that they're squatting, then I just don't trust that you're actually concerned with solving homelessness. That's why I'd like to see homelessness solved first. Once that's solved, we can solve the squatting problem, if it even still exists. Because doing otherwise starts to sound like yet another attempt to sideline the issue of homelessness.

unixhero 2y ago

I read somewhere that the situation is similar in Portgual with unused housing.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> ... and reality of weed smoking anarchists Mother of our kid owned a house in Spain. Two houses next to her house was an "okupa" but... They were gypsies. They broke in and two first thing they did: - change the locks - put pitbulls (with a 's') in the garden They were not nice people. Took six months but they eventually got kicked out.