The left demands the increase in the Real Estate Tax (IBI) on empty apartments in Palma, after having renounced it when governing the capital of the Balearic Islands for the last eight years (2015-2023), during which real estate prices have soared to the point of making Palma’s real estate market the most expensive in Spain.
Now, being in opposition, they demand that the mayor of the PP, Jaime Martinezthat punish with greater tax pressure to the owners of these houses, after object last January, when the owners of apartments with squatters stop paying this municipal tax while they cannot use the property.
The tax increase would not only concern large landlords, banks, developers or investment funds, but also any owner with a home who does not put it on the rental market.
A fact which, in most cases, is due to the fear caused by the maximum protection granted to them by the new law on public housing from Pedro Sánchez to the squatters and inquiokupas.
The initiative, which bears the seal of the Més separatists, has the support and vote in favor of the Socialists and Podemos, three opposition parties in Palma City Hall, and includes a gradual increase in the amount of the IBI from 1.5%. the first year, 3% the second and 5% the third and subsequent years.
And according to the spokesperson for Més, Neus Truyol,» A house is not a market good but rather has a social functionL. It is not something that must be used for profit, it cannot remain empty, but this social function must be fulfilled”, as the separatist councilor declared during this week’s municipal plenary session. to defend this initiative.
To make this tax increase effective, the left proposes that the Government modify the regional register of empty housing include all types of housing that remain uninhabited. The only exception would be owners who were workers, but are displaced and residing in another city due to force majeure, work or business reasons.
The left also demands that the municipal government of the PP of Palma create the Municipal census of uninhabited housing and approve a new regulatory tax ordinance that makes the tax increase effective.
This tax increase would be collected, for the first time, upon publication of the corresponding resolution. declare the house as uninhabited.
Thereafter, on the first day of each year, and as long as the accommodation is registered in the Register of Uninhabited Housing, it will be collected.
“Having an empty apartment in this period of tragedy and housing emergency is a shame,” defended the socialist councilor. Pepe Martinez.
Truyol did not lose the opportunity to highlight the change in discourse of his partner in the socialist government, now that he is in opposition. “I am happy that the PSOE now carries the standard of the right to housing because we disagreed a lot and the positioning was different, but not PP and Vox.
For the separatist councilor, “an owner cannot abuse his privileged position and housing must be available to residents so that they can live there. This is not an asset for speculation or business, revise the Constitution,” said an advisor who defends that non-residents cannot purchase a house in the Balearic Islands, but He said nothing when his Consell de Mallorca colleague, Jaume Alzamora, sold his to a German citizen.
On the other hand, the PP advisor for town planning and housingOscar Fidalgorejected the left’s initiative and its change of discourse once the three parties entered into opposition.
“If this tax is so extraordinarily goodwhy didn’t you take any steps to create it? during the eight years of their government”, asked Fidalgo, who recalled that the previous Armengol government had expropriated 56 apartments last time, without any of them being put on the rental market.
“There are other measures on the table, but It is not our way to create taxes of this typebecause we do not believe in this type of policy”, concluded the PP councilor.
