La Segarra approves the Housing Bank regulation to revitalize empty apartments

The Segarra Regional Council has definitively approved the Regulations of the Segarra Housing Bank, the instrument intended to allow the location and mobilization of empty homes in the region for purchase, rent, or sharecropping. The agreement, which concludes the administrative process, is published in full in the Official Gazette of the Province of Lleida no. 216, dated November 11, 2026, with the official reference BOP-2026_0_216_9416 (edict no. 9416, pp. 1-15). The text was initially approved by the Plenary in an ordinary session on July 29, 2026.

The path to final approval was completed without amendments: no allegations or suggestions were submitted during the public information process. The file was displayed via an announcement in the BOP of Lleida no. 151 (edict no. 6807, dated August 10, 2026) and in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat de Catalunya no. 9740, dated August 28, 2026. The document bears the signature of the corporation’s president, Ramon Augé Gené.

The regulations consist of 13 articles, a preamble, and three annexes (property sheet and registration forms for applicants and offerors), and are part of the trajectory the region began with the Segarra Strategic Plan of 2022, which already identified housing as a priority. Based on that diagnosis, a census of empty homes was prepared in 2022—updated in 2023—and the Local Housing Office was created in 2024.

A rural market with blocked supply

The preamble describes a region with high rates of aging and depopulation, an aging housing stock that is often oversized relative to the current population, and a significant portion of unoccupied properties. According to the text, the incorporation of these apartments into the market is limited by the reluctance of owners and a lack of knowledge regarding existing support mechanisms.

The difficulty of access is evident in both purchase and rental, where demand clearly exceeds supply. The stated objective is to revitalize the available supply, expand access opportunities, and encourage population rooting, especially the arrival of new families.

Three modalities and destination as primary residence

The service is offered through a digital tool hosted on the Segarra Regional Council website, which manages the platform and validates registrations prior to the publication of advertisements. The planned intervention modalities are:

• Rent.
• Sharecropping.
• Purchase and sale of homes.

Operations must be primarily intended to serve as the habitual residence of the buyer or tenant and shall be executed under the housing law and the urban leasing law, with an explicit rejection of any speculative action. Persons over 18 years of age interested in living in any municipality of the region may register as applicants; as offerors, natural persons of legal age or legal entities that own a home located in La Segarra —or through any other form of tenure— with the will to sell or rent it.

Inventory, documentary requirements, and dissemination limits

The technical team designated by the Regional Council will assume the location of empty homes, the creation of an inventory with verified data, the preparation of a file for each property, the registration of demand and supply, the verification and validation of applications, the periodic review of data validity, as well as support and guidance on public aid and compliance with agreements with the city councils.

The required documentation includes:

• Applicants: Valid DNI, NIE, or passport, telephone, and contact email.
• Offerors: Identification, tax number in the case of a legal entity, deeds or a simple note from the property registry, and valid habitability certificate and energy efficiency certificate.
• Optional: Photographs, plans, or sketches of the property.

Regarding privacy, the full name, telephone number, or email of the users will never be published, and only duly registered users may consult the offer. Responsibility for the data and for the leasing or purchase-sale operations rests with the parties, exempting the Regional Council.

Validity and appeals

The regulation takes effect the day after its publication in the official bulletins and will be published in full in the BOP of Lleida, with a subsequent announcement in the DOGC referring to it. A contentious-administrative appeal may be filed against the agreement before the Contentious-Administrative Section of the Court of First Instance of Lleida within a period of two months, in accordance with Article 46 of Law 29/1998, of July 13.

The regulation arrives when the debate on access to housing is particularly intense in the rural world, and it does so with a light intermediation tool, without public purchase of properties: the Regional Council acts as a bridge between owners and people who want to settle in the region. For the residents of the small municipalities of La Segarra, the Housing Bank is the first formalized way to make the empty housing stock visible and to access an apartment with documentary guarantees and technical support.

Source: Official Bulletin of the Province of Lleida, no. 216, November 11, 2026, Local Administration - Regional Councils, pp. 1-15 (official reference: BOP-2026_0_216_9416).