Depopulation leaves dozens of inherited homes standing empty in El Hierro's rural interior

The contrast between the interior and the coast

While the coast faces a housing shortage, the rural interior is steadily losing population, with empty homes piling up in Tiñor.

Inheritances nobody claims to live in

Many of these homes belong to families whose descendants emigrated and cannot agree on what to do with them.

Untapped potential

This stock of empty housing could ease shortages elsewhere, but it is hard to bring back into use.

Schemes aiming to reverse the trend

Empty-homes letting schemes have been trialled, with modest results.

An island moving at two speeds

The challenge is to connect unmet demand with the housing that already stands empty.

Tiñor, a village ageing house by house

The village of Tiñor, in the municipality of Valverde, has seen its population fall steadily over recent decades, with a birth rate that does not offset the ageing of its residents. Each time an elderly resident dies without descendants willing to settle on the island, another house joins the stock of shuttered properties. The result is a village with well-kept streets but a growing number of doors that stay closed all year round.

The legal obstacles of unresolved inheritances

A large share of the empty homes inland are held in undivided co-ownership between several heirs, many of whom live off the island and have no intention of returning. Local notaries and property managers explain that getting every owner to agree on a sale or a letting can take years, particularly when one of the heirs has lost touch with the rest of the family. This legal tangle frustrates any attempt to steer the empty housing stock towards those who do want to settle on the island.

Council initiatives with limited reach

Valverde town council has trialled schemes in recent years to broker deals between the owners of closed-up homes and prospective tenants, with results below expectations. Council officials put the limited take-up down to owners' reluctance to hand over a family property and to the lack of safeguards against non-payment. There are plans to reinforce these schemes with public guarantees that would lower the risk as owners perceive it.

The interior as a possible safety valve

Groups tied to farming and rural tourism argue that the island's interior could absorb part of the housing demand now concentrated in Valverde and along the coast. They believe that bringing these homes back into use as permanent residences, rather than solely for occasional holiday lets, would help stem the emptying of villages such as Tiñor. They acknowledge, however, that without first resolving the inheritance problem, any repopulation strategy has little room to work with.