Alberto González Amador carried out important demolitions without permission from the Madrid City Council in the apartment he shares with the president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. This is reflected in the file opened by the capital city council on the actions in this property, to which this newspaper has had access and which began in August 2022 following a responsible declaration presented by Ayuso’s couple to carry out some works. renovation in the apartment that he had just purchased in the central Chamberí neighborhood.
González Amador processed the works on the property just a few weeks after its acquisition, which took place in July 2022, after his fraud against the Treasury. On August 4, he requested permission to start works, which were rejected the next day by a municipal official, and in mid-October he acknowledged in another document presented to the Madrid City Council that he had carried out several demolitions of partitions and installations of what he intended to be a reform. comprehensive, according to the file data to which this newspaper has had access. It was then that Ayuso’s partner expanded the scope of the work and raised its cost: from the 9,816.73 euros that they declared they would initially cost to the 94,289.48 euros that they ended up setting as a budget, almost ten times more. The work described included demolishing partitions, floors, false ceilings, tiling and all the kitchen furniture. Also the complete renovation of the electricity, plumbing and sanitation of the property.
None of the works reported by González Amador had the relevant license from the Madrid City Council, which analyzed the documentation initially presented with unusual speed: the day after presenting it, Friday, August 5, 2022. Dated on that day, a The report from the district’s technical architect assures that the responsible declaration for the works presented the day before is “ineffective” and cannot be carried out. In this response, provided by Somos Madrid, it is reported that a responsible declaration cannot be extended – as the person affected ended up doing in October – and that the works described require an ordinary license. This report also adds that it is mandatory to contemplate the collection of waste from demolition, which had been omitted.
Despite the forceful municipal response, no technician from the Madrid City Council visited the property where the works had been carried out to check in situ whether the reform had been carried out and whether it complied with the permits. They did respond in the fall to the extension of works requested in October: the officials of the Chamberí Board, the entity in charge of all the processing, resolved on November 2, 2022 that there was once again “inaccuracy, falsehood or omission of an essential nature ” in the documentation presented and they demanded that Alberto González immediately cease the action. They also reminded him that, if works had been carried out, it was mandatory to reverse them and return the property to its previous situation. The report was validated by the general coordinator of Chamberí, María Cristina Goncer, through a resolution in which she decreed the ineffectiveness of the responsible declaration.
No official notifications until December
None of the reports and resolutions so far cited in this chronology were officially communicated by the Madrid City Council to Alberto González Amador. If it was done, there is no evidence of it in the file. For reasons that are unknown, the first official notification of the process arrives on December 14, 2022, when the Chamberí coordinator once again issued a new resolution, identical to the previous one, in which the responsible declaration was annulled. González Amador’s representative opened this communication on December 22.
By that date, several actions had already taken place without municipal support: the demolitions declared in October and also (in August) the flooding of a restaurant with sewage, as a result of the renovation of the apartment where Ayuso lives, according to El País. In addition, there had been a request to occupy a public road by a glassworks company, which planned to lift all the material for the renovation of the apartment with a crane on December 20, which was then delayed until the 27th of that same month.
On December 23, a decree by the district councilor himself, Javier Ramírez, prohibited this last occupation on public roads, which included parking a 26-ton truck in five parking spaces to unload. The notification this time was communicated immediately by the Chamberí Board and read by the interested party that same day, just before the Christmas holidays.
Despite the notifications that arrived almost at the end of the year, the works continued according to an expert report cited by El País, which states that they continued until at least December 29, 2022 and caused a new flood in the restaurant that had already been damaged. spilled water four months earlier.
The apartment purchased by the couple of the president of the Community of Madrid, which is their current residence, is valued at auction at 837,893.61 euros, although the market price in the exclusive area where it is located is higher. The valuation that the Idealista portal makes of the homes in that same building reaches up to 1,194,000 euros. The property, as reported by elDiario.es, has a mortgage for a much lower value, 500,000 euros, which is in the name of the businessman. The house, built in 1970, consists of a hall, hall, office, kitchen, toilet and service bedroom, toilet, main bathroom, master bedroom, three bedrooms and a small service hall. It also has a garage.
Since elDiario.es revealed her partner’s confessed tax fraud, the Madrid president has refused to answer how that property, one of two that the couple enjoys in the same building, had been financed.
González Amador acquired the first of the apartments that he shares with the president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in July 2022. In July 2023, just one year later, the Babia Capital company bought the penthouse located right above the property. The administrator of this company is Javier Luis Gómez Fidalgo, González Amador’s lawyer. Ayuso and her partner also enjoy this second property, as elDiario.es has learned. The move of both of them to this building was announced to the media in the fall of 2023. Ayuso even declared to different media that she was planning to purchase the home due to the high rental prices in the capital.
Two municipal reliefs and a promise of inspection
The presentation of a responsible declaration like the one made before the City Council by Alberto González Amador is common when starting economic activities or works in Madrid. This is a legal figure by which the person presenting it ensures that they have all the permits to carry out the activity. The entity responsible for supervision – in this case the Chamberí Board – must subsequently review the documents and, if they are correct, approve the operation. Or he denies the action, as has happened in this case.
The two resolutions denying the works were signed by the aforementioned María Cristina Goncer, then general coordinator of Chamberí. As this media reported, she was dismissed from her position after Almeida’s re-election as mayor. Like the councilor of Chamberí at the time the denial of the work was processed, Javier Ramírez, he has ended up far from this district. She is currently deputy director of the Office of the New Madrid General Urban Planning Plan. The Madrid City Council assures that her dismissal was voluntary because the coordinator “wanted to return to her place.” Internal sources of the PP consulted by this newspaper assure that Ramírez’s departure from the lists – he was sunk to 33rd place – was due to “retaliation” for having objected to the works in the apartment where the president of Madrid currently resides. .
Mayor Almeida’s team maintains an informative lock on the file opened by the illegal works of Alberto González Amador. The Urban Planning delegate, Borja Carabante, assured that he was not going to offer “particular data” about this case. “We would be violating the principle of protection,” he said, although he also assured that “the municipal technical services will carry out the same procedure with Ayuso’s partner as with any other person,” something that the current councilor of Chamberí, Jaime González-Taboada, also defended. , in one of the last plenary sessions of the district: “We are going to carry out the inspection,” he assured in response to questions from PSOE and Más Madrid.
The date on which municipal officials will visit the apartment is still unknown. The council indicates that it has been on the list of actions since Más Madrid denounced the illegality of the works, on March 20. There is also no evidence that any sanctioning process has been initiated, despite the fact that the urban planning violation is documented.
Allegations of favored treatment
This Tuesday, after the publication of this information, the left-wing parties have attacked Almeida’s team for allowing illegal works “favoring an individual,” explained the socialist Reyes Maroto in reference to the information published by this newspaper. . Rita Maestre has spoken out in even more explicit terms: “There is one rule if you are on the left and there is a different rule if you are from the PP for the urban planning discipline of the Madrid City Council,” she has even stated. “There is evident favored treatment, an evident abandonment of functions on the part of the different services of the Madrid City Council,” added the municipal spokesperson for Más Madrid.
This Tuesday, the mayor of Madrid avoided giving a date for the inspection, clarifying that “inspections that affect the safety of buildings have priority,” he said in statements to journalists. “Everyone can easily check the time that usually elapses from when a complaint is made until the inspectors visit the Board,” the mayor has justified.
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At elDiario.es we are aware that publishing news like this is not easy, that there may be consequences. At least we know what we’re dealing with this time. They have made it clear to us and in writing: “We are going to crush you, you are going to have to close.” The threats from Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, the right-hand man of the president of Madrid, are not just a warm-up. It is not even the first time that he has resorted to pressure like this to prevent information from being published.
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