The Catalan Consumer Agency has opened 85 sanctioning proceedings against real estate companies that are large homeowners, for failing to comply with the legal obligation to offer rehousing under a social rental regime to vulnerable people or families who enter the process of eviction due to non-payment.
Of the open files, six have already been resolved with a penalty for serious infringement, with fines of 25,000 euros for each file.
Since the lifting of the precautionary suspension of article 5 of Law 24/2015 on urgent measures to deal with the emergency in the field of housing, in February 2019, Consumption has carried out 96 inspection actions in relation to the obligation to offer social rent, and the controls are still open.
Article 5 of Law 24/2015 establishes that natural or legal persons that are large holders and financial entities, investment funds and asset management entities, must offer a social rental before filing any lawsuit for foreclosure or eviction – or before acquiring a home as a result of a compensation agreement or dation in payment-, when the living unit of a home is at risk of residential exclusion, in accordance with the income level also provided for in the same law.
