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The Government speeds up its strategy to sell properties belonging to the State.

In 2013, the Government wishes to speed up the sale and rental of buildings and plots in the hands of the Central Administration in order to continue fighting against the deficit and improving the functioning of the public sector.  According to a report accessible to this publication, the Government is “working on the identification of empty office buildings with no future administrative purpose, as well as on the evaluation of the possibility of placing them in the market”. They intend to “modify the urban coding of these properties before selling them, so that they may be used for lucrative purposes, thus increasing their value and the number of potential customers which could be interested in acquiring them”, the report declares.

In fact, some office buildings which could be “saleable” have already been valued. This is the case of the former headquarters of the national share market commission on Paseo de la Castellana, 19, in Madrid. Also the former studios of Radio Televisión Española at Paseo de la Habana, 75. There are still some buildings in the center of Madrid which are still graded as public equipment and need to be reassessed: this is the case of the headquarters of the former economic administrative court at Genova, 29 and the building of the General Directorate of National Heritage at Serrano, 35.

The Treasury Department has already taken into consideration the sale of these buildings. In order to place them at a better price in the market, the department controlled by Cristóbal Montoro points out “the convenience of selling them through competitive concurrence procedures, with openness and great publicity”. The Public Society of Real Estate Management of the Patrimony will be in charge of carrying out this procedure. The Treasury Department reserves the possibility of assuming the direct management of the operations should this be convenient for the operation.

But the plan to reduce the number of properties belonging to the State does not only affect the sale of office buildings. The sale of some plots is also being considered, but it is necessary to determine which ones can be sold. There are some in Madrid which comply with the requirements. There is a plot at Embajadores, 312, another at Francisco Remiro, 27 and another in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Arrollo Meaques) which could have “a suitability for building of more than 3000 square meters”.

There have already been significant savings thanks to the sale of buildings. Up to the 30th November 2012, according to the last information available, 7,2 million Euros had been deposited in the State´s cash register following the sales carried out by the General Directorate of National Heritage.

Without considering the figures of December, the income was already higher by 700.000 Euros than the one in 2011. The Housing Institute has also collected 44,1 million Euros in 2012 thanks to the sale of buildings and 1,9 million Euros for the Security Infrastructure Management. There have been savings for around 53 million Euros.

Nevertheless, the Government is not happy with the obtained results and detects that “in the last few months there has been a progressive deceleration in the achieved savings”. The State´s General Administration has 3035 properties in Spain and 567 leased buildings in other countries.

Source: Expansión

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