The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, has encouraged regional governments this Thursday to rescue more than 111,000 illegal tourist homes (VUT) spread across the country with the aim of adding them to affordable housing programs.
Rodríguez, who spoke at the "Seremos" forum organized by Cadena Ser, stressed that the autonomous communities must be involved in the fight against this irregular market and that these homes could become part of the public housing stock through direct purchase or through cession formulas by their owners.
In this regard, the minister reiterated that this process could be launched "right now" because the autonomous communities "have the resources." She also pointed out that in July the Executive will transfer the first 800 million from the State Housing Plan 2026-2031, endowed with 7,000 million for the entire period, of which 60% will be financed by the State and 40% by the autonomous communities.
The plan, approved unanimously by all the CCAA, sets a series of "conditions" to ensure that the homes are used for the intended "purpose." Thus, 40% of the total budget will be aimed at increasing the public housing stock, either through new developments or through the acquisition of existing properties.
Likewise, the program guarantees that the protection of these homes will be indefinite and that rents must be maintained at affordable levels, so that no family or young person has to dedicate more than 30% of their income to rent payment.
Cession of homes and the Bizigune model
Rodríguez also highlighted the option of ceding homes, a system that allows administrations to put empty housing into circulation for citizen use and at the same time offers "guarantees" to owners.
In this regard, she cited the Bizigune empty housing program of the Basque Government as an example, which captures unoccupied flats to allocate them to social rent, ensuring owners a fixed income for the cession.
"There is a lot of fear in renting out housing," noted the minister, who invited "everyone to rent out their housing and to do so at an affordable price, because it also has these aids and these public guarantees to be able to do so."
For this reason, Rodríguez has expressed his aspiration that the resources of the state plan "do good things", among them the recovery of immobilized housing or housing intended for tourist rental, but has stressed that "this will must be demanded" from the autonomous communities so that they carry it out.