Brussels is going after empty homes. The authorities began to identify properties that are empty and that could be expropriated due to the Brussels Housing Code. This is the first time that a study has analyzed residential vacancies. The newspaper Le Soir, which announced the inspection, detailed that there are 4,500 empty homes in the city at the moment.
In Brussels, according to the Housing Code, it is a crime to keep a property intended for housing empty, whether that be totally or partially. According to the law, the authorities could not only sanction but "support public management operators in their actions to combat vacant housing, including, in particular, the right of public management, the right of expropriation and the action for injunction."
Media outlets such as The Brussels Times have reported that the authorities' efforts to identify uninhabited homes began in 2021 when researchers crossed data on water consumption and energy bills for the first time.
"Water usage and energy bills estimate that there were between 17,000 and 25,400 vacant residencies in the Brussels-Capital Region, 10,000 of which were "suspicious". Out of a test sample of 5,000 residencies, 342 were deemed illegally unoccupied," according to The Brussels Times.
Using this model, the report found that between 0.7% and 4.6% of Brussels residential properties qualify as illegally vacant. Between 0.2% and 1.6% of these cases can be punished by law – so between 720 and 9,000 apartments or houses.
Similarly, local media reports that for the first time, last November, the Brussels-Capital region fined an owner for leaving a home unoccupied. There has been an increase in cases of people sanctioned for having their property vacant.
“However, it is ultimately the commune's responsibility to hold landlords of vacant homes accountable. 16 out of the 19 Brussels communes have employed a housing referent who is responsible for identifying disused properties. Only Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and Watermael-Boitsfort have failed to do so," reported The Brussels Times.
"Exprópiese," a cry reminiscent of Hugo Chávez
The measure reminds many of the communist regime in Venezuela. About 14 years ago, Hugo Chávez began a policy of expropriation of private properties. "Expropriate yourself," Chávez began to say while pointing out businesses that had been expropriated.
"On Sunday I had a small business and in two seconds I stopped having a business," said Freddy Chacón, owner of an expropriated jewelry store.
But that was only the beginning of a policy of expropriation that only accelerated the crisis in the country. Businessmen, small merchants and ordinary citizens were fearful. With an arbitrary law for housing rentals, people began to lose their properties that were confiscated by the dictatorship and assigned to other people without any respect for the rule of law and private property.
To this day, Venezuelans continue to experience the consequences of a policy of expropriation and disrespect for property that has only resulted in the theft of homes and businesses by the state. In 2023, Venezuela ranked last in the International Property Rights Index. "The lowest score obtained by the country (1.1/10) corresponded to the legal and political environment, which uses political stability, control of corruption and the rule of law as indicators, given the lack of judicial independence and the existence of a regulatory framework that threatens private property in the country," according to RunRun.es.
