The Cabildo of Lanzarote has commissioned an external legal report to determine whether the transfer of the seventy homes in Valterra (Arrecife) to their rightful owners complies with the law and whether they should pay for them or not.
In a resolution to which La Voz has had access, it is stated that the Minister of Housing, Miguel Ángel Jiménez (Coalición Canaria), asked the department to commission an external report on the file that recorded the transfer of the 70 homes in the Arrecife neighborhood.
It should be recalled that the Instituto Social de La Marina built 200 homes in the Valterra neighborhood in 1955, on land ceded by the Cabildo of Lanzarote and with the participation of various canning companies so that they could be used as subsidized housing and then transferred to employees. Of these, 130 were transferred, but the last seventy became stalled after three canning companies claimed ownership.
After several inter-administrative procedures, the island's first institution acquired these homes on May 8, 2023, when the previous Government group, led by Dolores Corujo (PSOE), accepted the donation from the Instituto Social de La Marina. At that time, the socialist official announced that procedures would begin to be able to transfer these properties "to their rightful owners" and register them in their names in the Property Registry of Arrecife.
That May, there was a change in the island government; the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort (CC), assumed the presidency, and the Ministry of Housing fell to Miguel Ángel Jiménez. In December 2024, after a year and a half of waiting and "due to the Cabildo's lack of response," the affected residents of Valterra hired legal counsel and denounced the island institution's lack of response.
In March 2025, a resident of Valterra died without being able to legalize her home. The Board of Directors of the Negotiating Table Association accused Oswaldo Betancort of "indifference" and pointed to the minister's "incompetence" at the time.
A report of necessity
More than three years after the transfer of the properties to the Cabildo, on May 14, 2026, the insular Housing Department issued a report of necessity that supported the external hiring of a jurist "of recognized prestige and extensive professional experience" to determine if it is legal for the Cabildo to transfer ownership "free of charge" or if it is lawful to do so "for a fee," in exchange "for the acquisition value" as the price to transfer them.
Within the framework of this contract, this urgent legal report has been awarded through a minor contract to lawyer Emilio Jiménez Aparicio, who has been a State Attorney for forty years, twenty of them at the Supreme Court.
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