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Barcelona’s Latest Affordable Housing Tool: Seize Empty Apartments

Fill vacant rental units with tenants or we will take over your properties, the city is warning landlords.

In the Sant Antonio neighborhood of Barcelona, housing costs jump by more than 50% in the past five years. Officials are using the threat of forced apartment purchases to create more affordable housing. 

In the Sant Antonio neighborhood of Barcelona, housing costs jump by more than 50% in the past five years. Officials are using the threat of forced apartment purchases to create more affordable housing. 

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power to force the sale of empty properties. 

This week, the city’s housing department wrote to 14 companies that collectively own 194 empty apartments, warning that if they haven’t found a tenant within the next month, the city could take possession of these properties, with compensation at half their market value. These units would then be rented out by the city as public housing to lower-income tenants, while the companies in question could also face possible fines of between €90,000 and €900,000 ($103,000 and $1,003,000), according to Spanish news outlets.