The Tax Office is not the only public institution that can conclude a debt agreement. Failure to pay employees’ contributions or failure to comply with contribution payment obligations may lead the General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS) to request an embargo on the debtor’s assets to cover them.

Currently, the Social Security General Treasury is offering up to 700 houses from these debtor seizures, including apartments and houses spread all over Spain, with auction prices starting at 10,000 euros.

Social Security can also seize property.Unlike banks and other financial institutions, public authorities such as the Tax Office or Social Security do not need the intervention of the court to decide on an embargo on the settlement of a debt. This does not mean that this institution is the usual way of collecting the debts incurred.

In fact, before it reaches such a rapid state, the Administration will try to collect the debt by other, less aggressive means. After all, the main purpose of the public institution is to collect the debt in the simplest way.

However, if there is no other way, as a public institution, it knows which assets are registered in the name of the debtor and carries out the seizure of the assets necessary to meet the debt. This includes the seizure of bank accounts, vehicles, warehouses and facilities, and as a last resort, homes.

Low cost homes, parking and facilities. As with Tax Office auctions, the starting price of the auctioned properties is usually well below the market price, so it can be a good opportunity to invest in properties at a lower price. “The starting price of a property at auction can be 30% to 50% below the market average,” Javier Díaz-Gálvez, co-founder of auction portal diyotubastas.com, said in statements published in the newspaper Público.

You can view the catalogue of assets to be put up for public auction on the website of the Social Security General Treasury. By filtering by property type or autonomous community, you can access the seized assets and details such as the starting price or the description and location of the property.

A total of 724 homes are currently up for auction in the TGSS, spread across the different autonomous communities. Catalonia is the region with the most properties up for auction, with 156 properties, followed by Andalusia with 122 properties and Madrid with 90 properties.

Who can participate in the tenders?. Any person not involved in the lien enforcement process, including representatives acting on their behalf (officers, appraisers, asset custodians, etc.), as detailed on the website of the General Treasury of Social Security.

To participate in the auction of one of the assets, in order to guarantee the purchase, you must present your DNI and deposit 25% of the starting price of the asset you wish to bid on, in the name of TGSS, as a deposit, committing to the commitment and receiving this shipment as proof.

Less restrictions than bank auctionsUnlike mortgage foreclosures carried out by banking institutions, properties put up for auction by public authorities have already gone through a debt negotiation process that exhausts the most harmful options for the debtor. This means that these properties are not affected by Law 1/2013, known as the Mortgage Debtors Protection Law.

This law was created to protect vulnerable people and prevent them from being evicted from their homes until December 2024. This law also impacts leases, as it requires that the same conditions that existed during the previous owner’s time be maintained, providing an additional layer of security for tenants.

Because Social Security auctions are not subject to these restrictions, they may have fewer restrictions than those offered at bank auctions, making them more attractive to certain buyers.

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Picture | Unsplash (Denise Jans), Wikimedia Commons (Zarateman)