The tenants of the 76 homes that make up the Galdós Building social housing development, in La Jurada (San Isidro), they constitute a platform for those affected by the resolution of the lease contracts, with the option to buy, which is in force. The property, the public company Municipal Services of Granadilla de Abona (Sermugran), demands that they exercise their right to purchase before September 12, and must notify it before June.
In a document sent to the Mayor’s Office of Granadilla de Abona, signed by 71 of the 76 affected, they request that they be guaranteed “without further delay” the power to extend the lease contracts in the event that they cannot exercise their right of option for sale. They also ask the mayor that the City Council and the municipal company agree “expressly not to proceed with the eviction planned for the homes of those affected.”
In addition, they propose to the local government that the Consistory “intermediate” with CaixaBank so that the bank improves the conditions that it is proposing to the tenants for the subrogation of the mortgage loan, which now has the municipal company as the owner of the properties.
Sermugran has already notified the neighbors that this year the lease contract expires and that they must exercise the right to purchase. The tenants maintain that they meet the requirements for access to public housing, both at the income threshold and because they do not have another property. Likewise, they state that “many” of the families “suffer from an exceptional situation of vulnerability, some are elderly, have insufficient resources to rent at market price or have one or more family members with disabilities.” The platform states that the pandemic worsened “even more” the economy of many of these families, “which is why many of us cannot access a mortgage loan.”
Yes there is communication
The residents of the Galdós Building affirm that the municipal company of Granadilla informed them, “through various channels”, that, if they do not exercise their right to purchase option in September, “we will have to abandon the public housing in which we reside, leaving absolutely helpless to the more than 70 families who have no other alternative.
In addition to “categorically” rejecting the management of this matter by its public officials, they criticize that to their requests for explanations “we have never received a response, nor any alternative to the situation of uncertainty that we suffer.” The extension of lease contracts for those who cannot exercise their right to purchase “is absolutely essential”, but it is an “extreme expressly denied by those responsible to the families who reside here.” In the opinion of the Galdós Building Affected Platform, this occurs “in violation, in our opinion and in a large number of contracts, of the Urban Leasing Law.”
Jennifer Miranda, spokesperson for the PSOE, publicly warned of the upcoming eviction of these families, an extreme denied – described as false – by the municipal government, which, she said, “will seek the necessary alternatives for the benefit of those people in a situation of greater vulnerability.” The socialist councilor puts on the table that “it could lead to a situation in which entire families are evicted to leave the houses empty.”
