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Santiago Thomás de Carranza, managing partner of the law firm that legally manages more than 14,000 properties, reviews, in an extensive interview in Confilegal, the impact of the current regulation on squatting.
For Thomás de Carranza, squatting poses a serious problem from a legal, social and economic point of view, especially for those who depend on rent as a source of income or have invested their savings in a second home.
Thomás de Carranza considers that “the current regulations place the owner in a defenseless position, forcing him to face long, costly and ineffective legal proceedings to recover his property. The law should be at the service of the citizen, not against him”, says the lawyer, who defends “the implementation of agile and guaranteeing mechanisms that allow the restitution of the possession of the property in a matter of days, not years”. In his opinion, the slowness of the judicial response generates distrust and contributes to reduce the supply of rental housing, raising prices and making access to housing more difficult, especially among young people.
In this regard, Santiago Thomás de Carranza reminds us that the bulk of the rental market in Spain is made up of small owners and not large funds or entities. Legal uncertainty and regulatory uncertainty are, therefore, an added obstacle that ends up penalizing the system as a whole. “You cannot legislate against those who have been supporting the market for decades,” he warns.
The lawyer also points to the low percentage of social housing existing in Spain ─barely 3.5% of the total stock, compared to 9% on average in the European Union─ as one of the structural factors that explain the price tension and the lack of effective solutions by public administrations. In his opinion, this deficit should be corrected by means of stable and technically well-designed public policies, “we need a serious State pact where politicians leave ideology aside”.
The complete interview has been published by Confilegal, a reference media in the legal field in Spain: https://confilegal.com/20250730-santiago-thomas-de-carranza-la-ley-deberia-estar-al-servicio-del-ciudadano-no-en-su-contra/
