The income from untouchable property in times of pandemic.

Analyses of the situation in Brazil and the world, and the actions of the State in many other countries in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, converge on the same fundamental point: the State can and should maintain the financial capacity of individuals and economic activities through income distribution and tax relief policies, guaranteeing the safeguarding of the population's consumption capacity and protecting economic activities, especially in the case of small and medium-sized businesses and micro-entrepreneurs, who are all held hostage by a perverse banking and financial system, among other factors, and prevented from retaining financial reserves, drastically affected by the loss of revenue and the inability to carry out their activities. Certainly, the most impactful commitment for both individuals and legal entities is rent. The first concern of a homeowner is rent, and the first concern of a non-residential tenant is their heaviest fixed cost, rent, followed by salaries and the cost of working capital.

Up until now, almost a month since the start of the quarantine regime, the issue of renting property has, in reality, been disregarded, and there is certainly a tacitly ingrained political motivation behind this within the power relations of Brazilian society. It is a matter of valuing private property, which confers upon it a historically established status of excessive rights and virtues that are configured both in Brazilian law and in... modus operandi Socially, private property in Brazil is like a temple dedicated to power, whose roots go back to colonial land grants, and whose evident expression is the concentration of land ownership in the hands of very few individuals or legal entities, both in Rural environment how much in urban spaceOur notorious social inequality stems from a profound economic inequality that could be lessened if access to private property were democratized. Our cities, occupied by almost 90% of the country's population (IBGE), are generally disorganized and degraded in the name of the ostentatious, almost exclusive interests of those who own the majority of the properties, consolidating a naturalized, exclusionary urbanity among the middle classes. The price of real estate, which also determines the value of rents, is... unilaterally controlled within the real estate market without the participation of public authorities.The real estate market, in turn, is controlled by large landowners through ownership, construction of properties, and political and economic pressure within the public sector. This means that they control the occupation of urban land according to their exclusive interests, relying on the formal or informal complicity of other social classes and sectors, which, inside or outside the public sector, aspire to that fundamental right to private property, the cornerstone of liberal thought and the bourgeois condition.

The right of each individual to their share of the planet's land is legitimate; however, not only in Brazil, this right is not only a minority right, but also excessive, detrimental, and immoral. A very small portion of the population has the right to private property, and, in terms of urban life, only 60% of people have access to ideal urban conditions, and often, among these so-called ideal situations, are only reasonable ones (IBGE). Most properties, but also the best properties, where the city can be truly good and safe, belong to the elites and our small and diminished Brazilian middle class.

Given that Brazilian real estate wealth is an immense asset held by a few, easily described by the jargon "real estate speculation," it's easy to understand why, in the recent processing of the emergency and transitional regime for legal relations in Bill No. 1179/2020, they quickly overturned Article 10 of Chapter VI, which would have allowed for the delay or temporary suspension of rent payments in cases of economic and financial changes; dismissal, reduction of working hours, and decrease in remuneration due to the pandemic., ...and it doesn't even mention non-residential rentals. Before that, on March 24th, Senator Weverton (PDT-MA) submitted Bill 884/2020, which proposes a 90-day suspension of rent collection for individuals and legal entities on an emergency basis due to the coronavirus pandemic. This would mean that residential and commercial rent collection would be suspended, and the amounts owed would be covered by the federal government in the case of landlords with assets below R$2,5 million. Unfortunately, the initial wording of this bill is poor and confusing; however, the direction it indicates would indeed be the best guidance for the issue of rents during the pandemic. It even resembles... emergency legislation in GermanyIn countries where ordinary legislation regarding real estate and rentals is very well regulated in defense of the financially weakest, the case of Germany is a prime example. To give an idea, evictions will only be legally authorized starting in July 2022. However, in Brazil, the aid arriving from the federal government through electronic applications does not address the fact that, in many cases, rent can represent more than 30% or even 50% of the family income of the poorest social classes.

The rejection of Article 10 of Bill 1179/20, in reality, doesn't make much difference since the fair and civic solution at this time of pandemic would be the temporary suspension of payments covered by the State with a grace period adequate for the financial recovery of individuals and companies, and with fair terms and installments. Therefore, it is necessary to revisit a crucial aspect regarding that period without revenue from the closed store, which will not be immediately recovered at the end of the pandemic, and regarding the 50% salary cut for employees, who at this moment, justifiably, feel threatened regarding their rent. Where will the income of small business owners and self-employed workers prevented from working come from? And, weighing heavily, is the current context of three consecutive years of decline in economic activity in Brazil. How will it be possible to re-employ and restart these interrupted businesses? Everything indicates that economic depression is almost upon us.

The rejection of Article 10 was justified with an old and inconsistent argument, claiming that prior rights exist for those owners whose only source of income is rental properties, and therefore the parties should resolve matters privately following the applicable legislation. This argument is equivalent to authorizing employers to resolve labor issues with each employee individually, issues that would previously have been agreed upon collectively and with the support of unions.

The relationship between landlord and tenant is almost always mediated by the "patronal" presence of real estate agencies. These relationships are conducted according to a tacitly adopted model to ensure the guarantees of the owners; they are poorly resolved relationships, with only a few exceptions; they are unbalanced relationships due to the authoritarianism prevalent in Brazilian life, where employers and owners, being the same entity, always manage to impose their conditions to the detriment of tenants' rights. This argument, which rejects Article 10, is very weak, because those who live solely on rental income are the large property owners who possess dozens, if not hundreds, of properties. Let's imagine, then, that person who, having 2 or 5 properties, has all or almost all of them vacant. Will they starve? Furthermore, in the case of a rent suspension due to the pandemic, the State could compensate them through emergency legislation. But deputies and senators, as well as jurists and almost everyone who has the opportunity, enter the mechanism of Brazilian rentier capitalism and protect it.

Thus, in Brazilian society, an unconscious and even atavistic relationship remains with a concept of private property that dates back to the power of slave-owning estates, shared among all social classes, and which in the current Brazilian urban landscape is perpetuated in our system of "south zone" and favela, upscale neighborhoods and periphery.