Castilla y León and Galicia were the communities in which the Church registered the most properties thanks to the Aznar law
Of the 34,961 real estate unregistered by the Church between 1998 and 2015 thanks to the mortgage law promoted by the Government of José María Aznar (PP), practically a third are in Castilla y León. In total, this autonomous community has 10,243 entries in the list prepared by the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory directed by Carmen Calvo and made available to Congress, which claimed it in 2017 through a proposal to law promoted by the PSOE and that went ahead with all the votes in favor except those of PP and Ciudadanos. The next region with the most unregistered assets is Galicia, with 7,131. On the opposite side of the ranking is Euskadi with 88.
The Government identifies 34,961 assets unregistered by the Church thanks to the Aznar law and activates the process for their claim
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Castilla y León and Galicia are followed by Catalonia with 4,192. Andalusia is the next with 2,111 unregistered real estate. One of the most striking examples of this procedure was the registration in the name of the Catholic Church of the Mosque of Córdoba in 2006 for a total amount of 30 euros. Also the Giralda or the Cathedral of Seville are part of that list that the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday and sent to the Cortes in two documents that exceed 4,000 pages. One of the smallest communities, Cantabria, is one of the first in the ranking, with 2,058 real estate.
In the press conference after the Council of Ministers, Calvo explained that, of the total of unregistered assets, 20,014 are "temples of the Catholic Church or complementary dependencies", such as schools, while 14,947 registrations "are not related to these uses ", such as" plots, houses, premises, etc. ". This second group also includes parking lots or country estates, among others.
In Galicia or in the Community of Madrid, for example, there are more unregistered properties for this type of purpose than for strictly ecclesiastical ones. In the first case, 4,384 are classified as "other destinations" while 2,747 are "temples and complementary dependencies". The figures are lower in the Community of Madrid, where the total amounts to 364, of which 185 have no religious purpose.
The vast majority of registrations were carried out solely with "the faith of the corresponding ecclesiastical authority." Precisely the mortgage law allowed that a simple ecclesiastical certification was enough to put any type of property in the name of the Church. It was made in total with 30,335 compared to 4,626 who had some other type of title.
The vice president recalled that these registrations occurred "under the protection of a legal situation", but has recognized that this important "volume" can now be "answered." The referral of the list to Congress is the first step for it to be publicized, and individuals or administrations that believe they have prior property rights may claim it from the Church. The route will be administrative or judicial, as explained by Calvo, in case of discrepancy.
