Irene Montero is calling for the government’s planned decreto de vivienda to explicitly allow the expropriation of homes owned by large investment funds — actors known in Spain as fondos buitre — so they can be rented out as alquiler social . In an interview published on Monday with elDiario.es the candidate from Podemos for the parliamentary elections said her support depended on this point and on measures to significantly reduce high rents.
The government says it is working on a package of measures to make evictions more difficult, protect rental contracts and bring together support for landlords and tenants. The text has not yet been published and, once approved, would need to be confirmed by Consejo de Ministros as a Real Decreto-ley by the Congreso de los Diputados . Montero stressed that simply freezing rents would not be enough; the aim was to reduce “very high starting levels” through legislation while rapidly expanding the social housing stock.
Similar demands are growing in political circles. Representatives of Sumar recently raised the possibility of expropriating a property cited as a precedent, belonging to “Maricarmen”. The issue concerns homes held by financial investors which, according to supporters of the proposal, have been taken out of the affordable rental market. The government has not yet said whether such interventions will be included in the draft.
Expropriations are legally possible in Spain, but are subject to strict conditions. They must serve the public interest, follow formal procedures and provide for appropriate compensation. A blanket authorisation targeting particular groups of owners would likely be contentious and could face constitutional and administrative court reviews. Further details would also need to be settled, including selection criteria, valuation methods, compensation mechanisms and how to distinguish abusive management of vacant properties from legitimate investment.
The interests at stake are clear: supporters of strong state intervention see forced expropriation as a way to bring hundreds or thousands of homes into alquiler social quickly and ease overheated local markets. Critics warn of legal uncertainty, high fiscal costs from compensation and negative signals to investors that could also hamper new construction. Until the government’s text is published, Montero’s proposal remains a politically attributed demand. Whether it makes it into the final version of the decreto de vivienda will only become clear when the text is presented to the Consejo de Ministros and subsequently debated in the Congreso de los Diputados.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).