Catalonia will add 13,000 Sareb homes to its public housing stock.

BarcelonaOf the more than 40,000 homes in Sareb –thebad bankOf the 13,000 homes (almost one in three) that the Spanish government said would be incorporated into the public housing stock, the Catalan government announced on Wednesday on the second day of the general policy debate in the Parliament, which was established in 2012 to take on the toxic assets of the Spanish banking sector.

Of the 13,000 homes (almost one in three) that the Spanish government said would be incorporated into the public housing stock, the Catalan government will manage them under a usufruct for four years.

This was announced by the president of the Catalan government, Salvador Illa, on the second day of the general policy debate in the Parliament. Illa also made another major promise on the subject of housing yesterday: to promote 214,000 homes across Catalonia by mobilizing land that had been pending until now.

The location of all these apartments and their condition are still unknown: some are occupied by families, but the number of plots hasn't been determined, and a few may need to be renovated. Sources from the Generalitat (Catalan government) explained this afternoon that all of them will be permanently subsidized and the rental rate will be affordable.

300 plots

Specifically, this is an agreement between the Generalitat (Catalan Government) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda for Catalonia to manage "all the assets that [Sareb] has in Catalonia," including 300 plots of land that are in various states of availability. In fact, sources from the ministry explained after their intervention that the Spanish government and the state housing company (Sepes) will sign a protocol that will allow the management of these 13,000 homes to be transferred to the Generalitat under this usufruct regime, as well as the incorporation of this company's land into Catalonia's public land reserve. "The protocol aims to identify and delimit the perimeter of assets, with a detailed inventory of homes and land, and follows up on the agreement of the Council of Ministers of July 1, 2025, which provides for the transfer of Sareb's assets to Sepes," these sources say.

The terms of the transfer of use include the duration of the usufruct, the distribution of expenses, the renovation needs, as well as the affordable rental regime and the coordination of information systems.

This type of transfer of use of Sepes to the Generalitat not only comes one day after Isla promised 214,000 homes. This Monday it was also learned that Sareb will pay the managers of its apartments for each transfer to the Sepes public housing stock. So far, the bad bank The apartments were sold through asset management companies –also known asservices–, to whom it paid a commission derived from the sale itself. However, now that a sale will not take place because they will be transferred to Sepes, Sareb will have to pay services such as Anticipa and Hipoges to get them ready, and will have to take the money from other income.