“Neighbors and National Housing Agency Clash Over Auctions and Evictions in Jardines de Viale Housing Complex”

There is annoyance between the organized neighbors of the Jardines de Viale housing complex, located north of La Paz, in Canelones, with the National Housing Agency (ANV). The last-minute postponement of a house auction at the end of March, as well as the signing of a lease to avoid a launch scheduled for the end of April, were the last episodes in a 30-year story about a space where to live.

Thanks to a loan from the Banco Hipotecario del Uruguay, in 1982 Edificadora Sociedad Anónima began the construction of 67 houses in the padrón 927 of La Paz. But, for different reasons, the work stopped in 1985 and in 1992 a group of families occupied some of the unfinished houses irregularly.

Today at the legal level there are complex situations. The most cumbersome corresponds to homes with a mortgage: there are currently 16 properties with delinquent mortgages and “the solution to resolve this mortgage would be precisely the auction,” said the president of the ANV, Klaus Mill, before the Housing and Planning Commission a few days ago. Territory of the Senate.

Mill affirmed that in order to “regularize the ownership of the properties”, which are legally being “occupied by intruders”, it is necessary “to terminate the link with the owner of the property through an unofficial auction”. This resource, he maintained, is “the tool that is available to finish the credit that that home has.” He pointed out that only when the ANV “recovers the house at auction” is there the possibility of “sitting down with the family that resides in it, who occupies it, and agree on a lease.”

“It does not give us any peace of mind,” say the neighbors

One of these auctions was set for March 30, but after the occupying family filed an appeal for amparo and the neighbors mobilized at the ANV headquarters, the process was postponed for 90 days.

in dialogue with the dailyRamiro Carrasco, a resident of Jardines de Viale, questioned the way of “regularizing” the housing complex by the ANV: “That auction was suspended for 90 days, [pero] Now there is an auction for June that is going to take place, and we don’t know who is next because they don’t notify you, they come and put up a poster two days before the auction”. She affirmed that “they have not solved anything” for the people who have gone to auction and warned that in 2020 they auctioned off the house of a retiree who “was left on the street” without “any solution to this day.”

Verónica Dodera, director of the ANV for the Broad Front (FA), explained to the daily that in the auction the ANV can “defend the good [la casa] by law so that it remains in the ANV and then regularize the occupant”, thus eliminating the risk of a third party acquiring the property at the auction. However, he pointed out that the auction of March 30 “was not going to be defended by the ANV.”

According to Mill, this did not happen because the occupant family “refused to provide socioeconomic information” that would allow “vulnerability to be assessed,” which is “one of the elements to consider for an eventual defense at auction and subsequent occupation of the occupant.”

The main claim of the neighbors is that the agency freeze all auctions and evictions in progress and that a negotiation table be set up among all of them. “They personally quote and say a different thing to everyone,” Carrasco said. The residents intend to regularize their situation through contracts that include the option to purchase the property.

Consulted about the statements of the vice president of the ANV, Gustavo Borsari, who maintained that “there is practically no possibility that [los ocupantes] stay outside” of Jardines de Viale, Carrasco stated: “It does not give us any peace of mind. 70% of what he said is a lie. So far they have not given us any solution and they have not called us either, everything is more of the same”. He also mentioned that there are currently three eviction processes underway that, although they are prosecuted, “did not stop.”

Dodera explained that since 2012 the ANV has been trying to regularize Jardines de Viale, but the reality changed in September of last year, when “certificates began to be sent for different situations -evictions, auctions- due to the risk of prescription” of the mortgages. She questioned that at that time “it was not taken as a special situation and then the neighbors began to make noise because they had no information about what was happening.”

According to the director for the FA, families are now being summoned “as it should be”, that is, “case by case”, because “not everyone is in an equal situation”. She pointed out that there are three different situations: homes with mortgages, “accounting-free” homes, which can be rented, and “commercial premises that were not finished building” in the original work, but that people later transformed. in homes.

Regarding Borsari’s statements, Dodera affirmed that “the word “practically” should be removed because “no one should be left” outside the housing complex. “I know that there is a family that has been on the street since 2020 and the house is unused. There is already an example of someone who was left out and is no longer in the complex. There could be others.”

Housing Commission will have “a follow-up attitude”

Before Mill’s appearance before the Senate’s Housing and Territorial Planning Commission, a group of FA legislators filed a communication requesting the Executive Power through the ANV to “freeze the auctions and evictions of the units in this complex while adopt a comprehensive solution for family nuclei” and that the State “comply with the duty to guarantee the right to housing” and avoid circumstances of “lack of protection” caused by “a bureaucratic administrative problem.”

The message did not reach a vote in committee. The ruling party and the opposition agreed to keep it on hold, pending the outcome of the negotiations between the ANV and the occupying families. in dialogue with the dailyGloria Rodríguez, a senator from the National Party and a member of the commission, affirmed that for the moment the issue “was lauded” at the parliamentary level because the ANV board reported that it “suspended the evictions”; although she pointed out that from the commission “we will be very attentive so that what has been agreed is fulfilled.”

Asked about it, Rodríguez said that she has not had contact with the residents of Jardines de Viale since the appearance of the ANV, but commented that “a note will be sent to the residents with what they told us.” She pointed out that in the complex there are “different situations”, some of which “obviously require entering into negotiations”, but also “there are neighbors who have everything paid”. In any case, she stressed that for the moment “evictions have been suspended” and “no one is going to be evicted.”

Meanwhile, the Frente Amplio senator and member of the commission José Nunes told the daily that the issue will remain on the commission’s agenda as “a follow-up attitude”, that is, to “see that the problems can be effectively resolved.” He warned that “strictly speaking not all family situations have been resolved.” In his view, the ANV board only raised “work criteria” and the “will to reach a solution”, but “the issue is in process” and “you have to follow events to see if it is actually achieved that objective”.

For Nunes, the fundamental thing is “that people do not lose their homes.” In case the individual negotiations do not prosper, he maintained, the commission would approve the communication minute or “other action”.

The text prepared by the FA points out that since the original work on the housing complex “was not completed” some of the occupant families made “improvements” to “make the homes habitable”, “from the floor to the connections to services.” Likewise, it maintains that “vulnerable” people live in most houses with a mortgage, therefore, the ANV should “make a defense of the auction as an act of protection.” Given that the authorities “are aware that they are vulnerable families”, and given that “in the face of the same situation of occupants there is a different treatment”, in the FA they consider it to be of “general interest to guarantee the right to housing”.