No one wants to buy Ayuso's luxury penthouse: the first auction remains deserted

MadridNo one wanted to buy Isabel Díaz Ayuso's luxury penthouse. The auction of the property remained deserted, according to the documentation from Planifica Madrid, which was finally made known this Thursday. That the attempt to sell the controversial penthouse has been, for the moment, frustrated, became known a few minutes before the Minister of the Presidency, Miguel Ángel García Martín, who is the president of Planifica Madrid –the public company that acquired the property for 6.3 million euros and subsequently put it up for sale for almost 6.8–, appeared at the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly. It was a highly anticipated appearance to clarify the unknowns about the operation and it did not convince the opposition. What the minister did respond is that they will put the property up for auction again because they are determined to sell it.

However, he was less convincing when explaining why Planifica Madrid bought a residential property if it was intended to replace the president's offices at Puerta del Sol while works were being carried out there –the official explanation defended in recent months–. García Martín provided, for the first time so far, documentation to build a new version of events. The minister assured that they needed a home with these characteristics –485 square meters, of which about 100 are terrace– for "institutional" use. They wanted a property "with an area intended for a workplace, a rest area and occasional accommodation for authorities on official visits to the region or the authorities of the Community of Madrid themselves".

This is stated in a document from July 2nd, almost a month before the scandal broke. García Martín gave as an example that it would be necessary in scenarios such as a COVID-19 pandemic. The residential use of the penthouse, moreover, is not incompatible with "having an office there" during the construction work, he argued. "It is never acquired to be an official residence for the president," he insisted. Neither the PSOE nor Més Madrid believed this justification, which they considered a "mockery" and were suspicious because this "report of needs" was from three months after the purchase, which took place in mid-April. The version from the Community of Madrid is that it was not made official until they began the procedure to rent the penthouse to Planifica Madrid, with a lease agreement of 3,000 euros per month, which never materialized. They have not provided any document that reflects what instructions for searching for a property were given to Planifica Madrid before the purchase.

Use of fires

If the purchase of the property was correct and was justified for these needs, why did the Community of Madrid decide to sell it without any use being made of it just when it came to light that it had been acquired? The version that García Martín has given is that they were "forced" to sell it to obtain funds for the reconstruction of the areas affected by the fires in the Sierra de Madrid this summer. The opposition has questioned that the regional executive cannot face the catastrophe without having to resort to a sale that, moreover, has not even been finalized. Both the PSOE and Més Madrid have accused the minister of "using the drama to cover up his shame". "And now what, will they no longer reconstruct the affected areas?", they have ironized. García Martín has replied that Planifica Madrid will equally give more than 20 million euros in dividends to the Community to dedicate them to this purpose.

With these explanations, Ayuso's team has wanted to turn the page on the crisis once and for all and has gone on the attack, threatening to file a lawsuit against the spokespersons for Más Madrid and the PSOE in the Assembly, Manuela Bergerot and Mar Espinar, for "a continuous crime of insults and slander". García Martín has stressed that the left has chased a "ghost" and "only wanted to manufacture a case" to cover up the "quagmire" of the management of Pedro Sánchez's executive regarding the migration crisis in Ceuta. However, after having provided dozens of documents that had not been provided until now, which raise new doubts –where is the economic report?–, and with the sale still pending, the issue is far from being closed.