The Balearic Islands are one of Spain's regions with the highest percentage of homes in the hands of large owners, typically banks and investment funds.
According to figures from eldiario.es, these large owners have at least 26,601 properties in the Balearics; the exact number is reckoned to be higher. The total housing stock is put at around 650,000. These properties therefore equate to just over four per cent.
Of the 26,601, there are 6,672 where owners have 100 or more properties; 6,926 between 25 and 100; and 12,463 of ten or more.
In Balearic Government terms, ten is the minimum to qualify as a large owner, this having been stipulated under law introduced by the last government.
A question might be why it matters if there are these large owners with four per cent or so. For the last government it mattered because of the number of empty properties. It was determined to get the properties onto the housing market and so obliged large owners to register the properties with the intention of potentially expropriating them for a limited period (seven years). In exchange, the government would guarantee a payment for rent.
This didn't prove to be successful. Only some forty properties were expropriated. Meanwhile, owners started to sell properties rather than allow the government to take them on. An accurate figure for the number of empty properties was never arrived at, partly because not all owners played ball. But at one point there were more than 2,000.
The current government is working on a new housing law, a feature of which - it hopes - will be tougher rules to combat squatting. It is not known as yet if the government will maintain provision for expropriation, its approach having been more one of persuasion backed by incentives rather than enforcement.