The Housing Department of the Government of the Canary Islands, headed by Sebastián Franquis, through the Canary Housing Institute (ICAVI) has published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) the first of the resolutions of the new Decree of Measures for Access to Ownership of Protected Housing for tenants who have been living in them for more than 25 years, an initial call that will benefit 210 families from Lanzarote.
The potential beneficiaries from Lanzarote in this first call are 150 families living in Los Alonso, in Arrecife, and 60 families living in the Los Lirios community, in Tías.
Throughout the Canary Islands, it is estimated that there are a total of 10,500 families who have been renting public housing developments since before 1996 and who will be favored by the various calls that will be carried out throughout the year in application of this Decree, which came into force last January.
At the provincial level, this first resolution will offer the option of acquiring the property to 853 family units in the province of Las Palmas and another 633 in the province of Tenerife. Once published in the BOC, ICAVI technicians will offer the publicly promoted protected homes to each awardee, who will have a period of 12 months to formalize their application.
To facilitate access to housing, the Department will also offer tenants a 50% bonus on that reference price and, from the remaining 50% that tenants must pay, all rents already paid will be deducted.
A new call every three months
In addition, those who want to access the property must demonstrate that they habitually and permanently occupy the home for which they are the awardee, that none of the members of the cohabitation unit owns any other home, be up to date with the fee approved by the Administrative Board relating to the common expenses of the building, have paid 35% of the rental fees or 50% of the sale price of the same, and that the home is insured at least against fire and catastrophic risks.
For the application of the decree, a quarterly call has been designed throughout this year, until all the groups of protected homes affected by the decree are completed, which are those that are under a lease in a house awarded before the III Housing Plan (1996-1999), and the second, which are under a purchase agreement prior to the I Housing Plan (1988-1991).
With the approval of this Decree last January, an important novelty is incorporated since it allows to group all the previous decrees of access to the property processed in the Canary Islands Autonomous Community, allowing the sale of groups of homes or units of them to be offered and that, once an offer is concluded, it can be offered again, significantly simplifying the procedure.