Housing movements occupy the headquarters of a private equity firm in Barcelona

Activists locked themselves in for five hours until being contacted by an official negotiator

Natàlia Vila

2 min

Els activistes han ocupat la seu vestits amb granotes vermelles i màscares que recorden els personatges de la sèrie La Casa de Papel FRANCESC MELCIÓN

BarcelonaA group of 40 people occupied the headquarters of Haya Real State in Barcelona at midday today, a real estate agency which works for private equity firm Cerberus. The events took place in Avinguda Josep Tarradellas, number 36, 12am till 5pm. After gaining access to the offices -now empty and only guarded by a security guard- the demonstrators climbed to the roof of the building and unfurled a large banner on which the slogan "War on Cerberus" could be read. Meanwhile, more than 400 people followed the action from the street.

The protest, organised during weeks, was agreed upon during the Catalan Congress for Housing - which brought together all social movements - and is led by different unions and platforms in the struggle for decent housing. The aim, they explain, is to stay in the offices until the company sends "an official negotiator". The social movements thus intend to force a negotiation to reach a "collective agreement" that will benefit "the thousands of tenants affected by the abuses of this private equity firm". Cerberus, according to the housing unions, has more than 160,000 flats in Spain, and most unions and platforms claim to have people affected by cases of real estate abuses by this company among their members.

Moment en què els activistes han pujat fins el terrat de la seu d'Haya Real State i han desplegat una pancarta amb el lema "Guerra a Cerberus" Francesc Melción

This time, however, the protest was short lived. By the afternoon, the organisers explained they had managed to contact two people from the firm: Patrícia López Llavata, head of Haya Real State's social policies, and Javier Puchol Garí, vicepresident of Cerberus European Servicing Iberia in Spain. According to the unions, the representatives from the private equity firm have not wanted to establish any kind of negotiation. "They have not accepted our demands, although they weren0t that difficult" explained union members. At the end of the protest, they warned that this was only the first of the actions that they had prepared.

Opacity and breaches

In the morning, the speaker for one of the housing associations explained the difficulty that renters' unions have to negotiate with private equity firms and demand that they comply with the Catalan law that obliges large landlords to offer a "social rent" for vulnerable families before seeking an eviction. "Vulture funds are opaque. Before we could negotiate with a bank, but now we have to do it with people whose faces we don't even know and yet they play with people's lives." The Housing Associations added that they hoped to unmask these firms. That is why the activists claim they will not stop until the private equity firm becomes visible.