The Plenary unanimously approves that SAREB transfer housing as a public park

The Martorell City Council will demand that the homes and land for development owned by the Asset Management Company from Banking Restructuring (SAREB) be transferred to the public park of the administrations, whether autonomous or local. This is reflected in a motion that aims to put these assets rescued from the “bad bank” back into circulation for social rent. It also calls for the creation of a census of assets and providing local administrations with the financial resources to manage them.

The motion promoted by Movem Martorell and ERC prospered in the last Ordinary Municipal Plenum of the 2019-23 legislature, this Monday. It did so unanimously. The five political forces present in the council – Junts per Martorell, PSC, Movem Martorell, ERC and C’s – voted in favor after amendments were accepted between the government and the proponents.

“SAREB was, at the time, a solution to the State’s financial problem, but since 2012 it has not performed its function and the result is that there are thousands of degraded homes now that there is so much need to ‘housing’, said Mayor Xavier Fonollosa. And he added that, as a consequence, “the local administrations are the receivers of the problems, and it is very important to have public control of the entity again. If that had been the case from minute 1, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Xavier Fonollosa, alcalde de Martorell

Consequently, it is requested to “promote the necessary legal modifications to enable the assignment, management and use of all SAREB housing and developable land in the regional or municipal public park to allocate them to social rent”, as and as the councilor of Movem Martorell, Laura Ruiz, detailed in the agreements.

The creation of a parliamentary investigation commission is also called for to ensure compliance; a modification of SAREB’s corporate purpose to transform it “into a public tool to guarantee the right to housing” and the preparation of a census of all these assets – houses and land that can be developed.

Laura Ruiz, portaveu Movem Martorell

One of the primordial agreements by the City Council is to request that the transfer of the assets be accompanied by “sufficient resources to guarantee the habitability of the homes and their social rental function”, reiterated the Councilor for Urban Planning and Housing, Albert Fernández.

Fernández advocated for these resources to strengthen “the current Basic Social Services team, to ensure that all requests for suspension of eviction procedures are met and to offer solutions to all people without alternative housing”.

Albert Fernández, regidor Planificació Urbanística i Habitatge

PSC councilor Manoli Franco stressed that “SAREB has been the bad bank and must be a tool at the service of the public good”. He added that “it is necessary to put an end to the unethical practices of the bad bank, since housing is a problem that affects a large part of Spanish society”.

Manoli Franco, regidora PSC

ERC Councilor Soulimane Messaoudi was grateful, as one of the proponents of the motion, for “the broad consensus generated in the Plenary”. The republican also emphasized that “these homes cannot go to the vulture funds, as has happened in Madrid, funds that do not understand the problems we have as a town in terms of housing, an issue in which we will always be there because it affects many groups”.

Soulimane Messaoudi, regidor ERC

Juan José Pérez, councilor of Ciutadans, recalled that “the beginning of the problem was the collapse of the financial system, of the savings banks governed by politicians with very lax regulations and which led the entities to bankruptcy”. and that “easy credit opened the door to corruption and speculation”.

Juan José Pérez, regidor Ciutadans

SAREB was created to buy part of the toxic and problematic assets that the bank had – solving its negative balance sheets -. It became a “bad bank” that allowed entities to no longer have the burden of assets that generated expenses.

Ruiz, in the reading of the point, pointed out that “it was financed with public resources that represented 95.3% of the total”. But the European Union dismantled this strategy in April 2021 and forced the accounting integration of SAREB as part of the public administrations: “as a consequence, it has a negative impact on the public accounts with an increase in the public deficit of 9,891 MEUR year 2020”.

Laura Ruiz, portaveu Movem Martorell

The transfer of the properties and developable land from the SAREB to the administration was paid “much more expensive than the real cost. Real estate, land and loans were bought for 18,000 million euros more than they were worth.” This was stated in the motion that, approved unanimously, became the last of the current legislature.