Asval (Association of Rented Housing Owners), which aims to represent the rental market, was presented on 27 March. As you can read on your website, “Asval is born with the intention of working for an efficient, balanced and rational rental market”, which will bring together and replace small and large owners. However, the Union of Tenants of Llogateres in Barcelona has denounced that the composition of the association and its purposes are not true.

“They say that the association is made up of small and large owners. It actually only includes three ‘small owners’ to legitimize the partnership,” said the Llogateres Union. It is enough to look at who are the founders of the association to know where the project comes from and infer in what direction its intentions are going: The Catalan real estate companies La Llave de Oro y Tectum de Madrid, together with the Ares Management fund, decided to create Asval; and once the idea was put on the table, they were joined by the Test Home – which takes the word Fidera – and the promoter Albirana, which are SOCIMI of the vulture fund Blackstone.

It is the gigantic speculators who hide behind Asval, although they say that the discourse includes both the big and the small owners. The discourse would respond to what, according to the union, vulture funds and promoters intend: to have the support of small owners to achieve their goals. It is clear that Asval is the employer of speculators: “Its aim is to put pressure on the Spanish Government to continue to facilitate real estate speculation.”

Asval is chaired by the Mayor of Barcelona and Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade of the Government of Spain, Joan Clos i Matheu, among others. She is OK as director Beatriz Toribio, of the real estate Fotocasa.

"When we say real estate portals are not neutral actors, it's why. So far the role of ‘speculators’ employers’ has been played informally,” the union stressed.

Lobby at the door of the rental strike

It seems no coincidence that Asval had seen the light on the portals of a massive rental strike that is going to start with the month of April. The association itself has stated that before making public the association wanted to work for more months, but due to the situation created by the coronavirus, they have been forced to present themselves to act in favor of the owners.

The Llogateres Union denounces that among the objectives of Asval is to prevent the suspension of rents and the regulation of prices. However, he says that with the emergence of the partnership, positive conclusions can be drawn: that speculators fear losing their business. “That’s why they need to win the trust of small owners. What they really want is to strengthen their legitimacy to take advantage of this conjuncture.”

In this regard, he reminded small owners that vulture funds, real estate developers, socimi (Listed Company for Investment in the Real Estate Market), sicav (Variable Capital Investment Companies) and real estate portals do not want to protect them, but their aim is merely to strengthen their position in the real estate market by the time we leave the crisis we live. They have warned that the problems of the landlord, mortgage or small homeowner have more to do with the problems of tenants than those of those billionaires. “We are not going to allow their billionaire bonds and the profit of their shareholders to provoke a war among the population,” said the Llogateres Union.