The president of the Popular Party of Lanzarote, Astrid Pérez, has described as “a real indecency” the decision of Pedro Sánchez's Government to force owners of occupied homes to pay tax in the IRPF for income they have never received. For Pérez, this measure “is a new example of how the Government of Spain continues to turn its back on owners and punish those who comply with the law, while de facto protecting squatters and defaulters”.
The popular leader has pointed out that this situation occurs in a "profoundly unbalanced" regulatory context, which "has contributed to aggravating the problem of squatting" and "inquiocupación" throughout Spain, including the Canary Islands.
“We are facing a policy that penalizes the owner twice: first, when they lose control of their home or stop collecting their rent, and then when the Tax Agency comes and demands them to pay taxes on fictitious income, which they have not received. It is simply unjustifiable and one more absurdity that the Sánchez government has accustomed us to,” he stated.
Astrid Pérez has criticized the "parallel reality" in which the Government lives and the "denialism of the left that insists on minimizing a real problem that affects thousands of families".
“While some have the audacity to say that squatting is not really a problem, there are owners who are living through authentic personal dramas because in addition to losing control of their homes, assuming legal and economic costs for years, on top of that they must pay taxes on rents they haven't even collected, which is a real absurdity,” he/she/it has stressed.
In this regard, he/she has recalled that complaints for illegal occupation and conflicts related to the non-payment of rents "has continued to increase in recent years", evidencing that it is “a reality that cannot continue to be ignored and that requires immediate solutions”.
Likewise, the island president of the PP has questioned the effectiveness of the measures promoted by the Government within its anti-crisis package, pointing out that “far from solving the problem of access to housing, they have generated more legal insecurity and have reduced the rental supply”.
“The result is clear: fewer available homes, higher prices and more difficulties for families,” Pérez added, who has reiterated the need to “stop criminalizing owners and act firmly against those who violate the law.”
