El derecho a la vivienda o a la propiedad en España¿Estado social o Estado de Derecho?

Abstract

The social and political context has been a determining factor in shaping the content of the right to property throughout history, but even more so when it comes to the right to housing as a subjective right. Nowadays, and thanks to our social and democratic Rule of Law, the concept of property has innumerable social connotations far removed from the absolute character of the liberal era, and has been even more modulated and limited since the recent approval of the Housing Act. All this has given rise to a confrontation of perspectives between its individual and collective conception, with the Administrations being responsible for defining its social projection in favour of the general interest, through institutes such as expropriation and other coercive or modulating measures of the right, attempting to reconcile, in the fairest possible way, the interests of the owner and the collective. However, this intended balance may perhaps create a vacuum of content in property law in our legal system in the difficult game between the legal security of owners and the ineffective action of the public authorities in situations of need for decent housing for all