Idealista will create its own register of tenants who do not pay on time

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Real estate portal, Idealista, has set up a new company called Real Estate Default Database, which belongs 100% to the group and whose sole administrator is Fernando Encinar, Co-Founder and Head of Studies of the company. The company was established early August and, as stated in the BORME, aims to "data collection, processing and analysis of the risk of delinquency in the rental of real estate", in addition to "membership, creation, consultation and management of database of breach of monetary obligations derived from the rental of real estate."

With just one month of life, the company has not yet registered activity. But as this newspaper has learned, the portal already has a relatively large team (about fifteen people) working on the project. Official sources of the company indicate that "by our strategy, we may be interested in having this structure in the future" but that "for the moment, all we have is society".

Idealista, who bases his business on charging agencies and owners to rent or sell their apartments, wants to take this step one step further and become the reference source for rental data. In Spain there are several companies that manage delinquent files - the ASNEF list of the National Association of Credit Financial Institutions, or the Unpaid Acceptance Registry, whose information comes from banks, savings banks and credit unions are the best known— and in the last years others specialized in delinquent real estate have been born.

The reform of the Law on Urban Leases in 2013 contemplated the creation of a public registry of delinquents of the rent (generated from firm sentences of non-payments), but it was not executed because there were doubts about whether the State had powers, according to sources Government

Registered tenant records are thus private. And they charge to access your information. The best known is the File of Tenant Tenants (FIM), belonging to the Enacom group, which in turn owns Secure Rental. In addition to using it to offer its own services, if a third party (a real estate agency) asks for a tenant, FIM prepares a report indicating if it is on your list and including other information that you know, such as the employment situation. These reports are available to everyone for 24.95 euros, so that anyone can check if it is included or not.

Where do they get this data? In the case of FIM, part of the information comes from private owners, who can register their tenants by attaching evidence of their delinquency. The regulations indicate that they must notify them before. Other recently created companies, such as the 'partner' of Metrovacesa Garantify, ask the tenants for "economic, labor, fiscal and financial" data and reserve the possibility of consulting others listed in the Treasury, Social Security, Public Service State employment and "other sources accessible to the public". However, they build a scoring that they present to the landlord.

In Rentger, a rental management software, they offer the owners a list of documents to ask the tenant (guarantee, income certificates, insurance policies, etc.). "There are those who do not request anything. Others request even the birth certificate," jokes Chema Larrea, its Founder. "Then the managers or owners use tools such as the File of Tenant Tenants to do a 'scoring'. Or they do it by hand, calculating the ratio between the annual rent and the tenant's salary." In his opinion and experience, "late payment is not a big problem and is solved by the selection of tenants. Normally the tenant who gives more security is given: payroll, guarantee, payment of months of deposit in advance..."

As Idealista does with prices, the File of Tenant Tenants publishes reports on late payments for rent in Spain. The latter warned of an annual growth of 5.67% and estimated at 6,185.68 euros the average amount of defaults, as a result of the increase in rents throughout Spain. According to this file, the volume of defaults has not stopped growing since 2007 and the possibility of a new recession would only increase them. However, the tenants are not the only delinquent: Treasury technicians have repeatedly noted that a large percentage of Spanish landlords do not declare the rent to save taxes and last August the Tax Agency reported that in the last three years has surfaced more than 122,000 rentals 'in black'.

In the only interview he has given about his new society, the Founder Fernando Encinar pointed out: "From idealistic data we are interested in compiling all the present and future databases to complement the analyzes we make of the market and one on delinquency will provide much information about the future rental evolution."

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Join us November 12-15 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Madrid 2019.