Thousands of tenants, to the brink of default

Carlos Manso ChicoteSEGUIRMADRID Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

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liquidity problems for thousands of tenants (families, students, …)are exacerbated to the extent that it fostered the economic crisis. The Covid-19 is becoming a real stress-test for the rental market in Spain. The Association of Owners of Rental Housing (Asval)sounded the alarm this week quedurante confinement (march-may)non-performing loans has tripled from 5% to 15% and, according to its director-general, Beatriz Toribio, “we fear that the situation is to lengthen if it is the ERTE become ERE (Records of Employment Regulation), and meets the economic forecasts”. Yadvierte:”it can’t be that the owners are the only ones that load with the backpack, which leaves the crisis by the pandemic.” His bet is “seek solutions for the two parties, and that the tenants may continue to access housing.” In addition to reduce delinquency and the collapse of the Justice.

To do this, explains Toribio, from Asval propose “a package of direct aid and 750 million euros aimed to 350,000 families (which would be about 2,000 euros per year), that spend more than 48%of their revenue to the payment of the rent, when the effort recommended by the experts is 30%”. A stud which, the spokesman of Asval, believes that it could come from the european funds that Spain will receive from Europe: 140.000 million euros in the next six years.

director of Studies Pisos.com Ferran Font , we are “in a critical situation, which demands truly exceptional performances” and it mentions the sharp drop of GDP in the second quarter (22.1% in the interannual rate, the worst since there are records, according to the INE). For this reason, sees it necessary that “there is aid at the margin of what they can do for landlords and tenants”, and is committed to directly support the second “in situations of risk of exclusion” , although a “very limited time”. The goal:to avoid a delinquent runaway, and a multiplication of judicial proceedings.

in this regard, pointing to an important fact:before the moratorium on evictions, adopted by the warmth of the alarm state and extended until the end of September. “the main reason or source of the evictions were lease contracts”. In particular, on the basis of the statistics of the General Council of Judicial Power (CGPJ), in 2019 it executed a total of 54.006 judgments ( or “pitches”) to deprive a person of the ownership of a property. Of them, 14.193 had their origin in the non-payment of a mortgage by 36.467 whose cause would be the dissatisfaction of a lease (Law on Urban Leases). The remaining 3.346 would have other reasons. For its part, the Union of Tenants, proposes recipes which has resulted in the proposition of Law where the processing is stalled in the Parlament Catalan, and that, among other provisions, provides for the obligation to freeze or lower the prices of new rental contracts of populations Catalan of more than 20,000 inhabitants .

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The Government extended last July 7, measures taken during the state of alarm as to stall the eviction until 2 October and the loans ICOal rental. On this type of aid, the lawyer Legálitas Thomas Philip, points out that “in reality just take two or three weeks running,” and are subject to the “situation of vulnerability” (ERTE, unemployment, cessation of activity…) of the tenant has occurred as a result of the Covid-19. “These are loans at zero interest, to pay from 6 to 10 years, that allow you to pay up to six monthly payments” says this lawyer. Toribio (Asval) stresses that after making a study of over 30,000 homes, only 1.3% were interested in these loans. For Font (Pisos.com) the reason might be the fear to enter in a “spiral of debt” . .

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