Private registries of 'delinquent tenants' in Spain (elDiario.es, 5 Sept 2019)
Idealista will create its own registry of delinquent tenants
By Aanalía Plaza. Published in elDiario.es on 5 September 2020
Original headline in Spanish: Idealista creará su propio registro de inquilinos morosos
Summary (content from the article through Google Translate):
This is a really interesting story prompted by plans by Idealista, the biggest online site of real estate ads in Spain, to develop and offer as a service its own database or registry of 'delinquant tenants' (by November 2020, that service was live at https://www.idealista.com/base-datos-inquilinos-morosos
The story describes other existing such private databases in Spain and discusses where they get their data from and the legality of this kind of services:
"In Spain there are several companies that manage delinquent files - the ASNEF list, from the National Association of Credit Financial Establishments, or the Registry of Unpaid Acceptances, whose information comes from banks, savings banks and credit cooperatives are the best known - and in recent years others have been born specializing in real estate defaulters.
"The reform of the Urban Leasing Law in 2013 contemplated the creation of a public registry of rent defaulters (generated from final judgments of non-payments), but it was not carried out because there were doubts about whether the State had powers, according to sources governmental.
"The records of delinquent tenants are thus private. And they charge for accessing your information. The best known is the File for Delinquent Tenants (FIM) , belonging to the Enacom group, which in turn is the owner of Safe Rental. In addition to using it to offer its own services, if a third party (a real estate agency) asks about a tenant, FIM prepares a report indicating if it is on your list and including other information that it knows, such as employment status. These reports are available to everyone for 24.95 euros , so that anyone can check if it is included or not.
"Where do they get this data from? In the case of FIM, part of the information comes from private owners, who can register their tenants by attaching proof of their delinquency. The regulations indicate that they must notify them before."
It also points out that landlords themselves can also be delinquent and many not pay their due taxes, for instance:
"However, tenants are not the only defaulters: the Treasury technicians have remarked several times that a large percentage of Spanish landlords do not declare their rent to save taxes and last Augustthe Tax Agency reported that in the last three years more than 122,000 rentals have surfaced 'in black' ."
Keywords: rental, defaulter, privacy, databases, registries
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