The Community of Madrid has just awarded a contract for 2.4 million euros that must be executed “on an emergency basis” to repair accumulated incidents in public housing. The company in charge of the work, Servihogar Gestión 24 Horas SL, will have five months to carry out the repairs after the maintenance contract initially awarded to Fatecsa Obras SA left hundreds of breakdowns unfixed.
He inherits a serious problem: 942 incidents in homes of the Social Housing Agency (AVS) that have not been attended to for months by the company in charge of their maintenance, and that “in many cases” represent “imminent risks for residents”, according to public documentation consulted by EL PAÍS. There are electrical risks, water damage that generates humidity, mold and structural risk, as well as possible respiratory conditions and health risks, without ignoring the health risks derived from leaks, pests and serious deficiencies and, finally, a “severe deterioration in habitability” that affects, the Administration emphasizes, “vulnerable groups.”
The Community of Madrid, consulted by this newspaper, does not specify how many of the 25,000 AVS homes the problem affects. This is what a spokesperson says: “This is an action framed only in the AVS homes to address and resolve incidents to which the current contractor has not responded. The procedures have been initiated for the corresponding sanctions for non-compliance and the termination of the contract.”
Madrid hopes to resolve the current and failed contract and replace it with a new one as soon as the Governing Council of Isabel Díaz Ayuso gives its approval, expectedly at the end of March, according to the spokesperson himself. But it does not matter how agile the Administration is now: the days that pass until the situation is normalized add to the long weeks of continued deterioration in public housing without repair. For example, the data of 942 defects was recorded on February 5. It’s been a month now. There is damage that has already been done.
“The non-compliance of the contracting company is proven in the file, despite having been repeatedly requested to properly attend to the incidents, both verbally, by email, in face-to-face meetings and, finally, by formal letter sent on December 9, 2025, which has led to the adoption by the AVS of the measures provided for these cases in the contractual regulations, in particular, the imposition of penalties, having also initiated the contractual resolution procedure,” it reads. the documentation accompanying the contract.
The company targeted, with which this newspaper tried to contact without success, had already been in trouble for months, as stated in a contract to fix a hundred boilers that was published on the regional contracting portal. There it was already mentioned that it was not complying with the repair times included in its original contract with the Community of Madrid.
The 942 incidents that have motivated the urgent intervention do not only come from notices from tenants, but from technical inspections registered in the internal Checkingplan system until February 5, 2026, according to the administrative file. The document describes a “situation of work stoppage” by the contracting company, which left electrical, plumbing, sanitation, locksmith or masonry repairs in homes in the public park without being carried out. Given the accumulation of breakdowns and the risks detected, the Social Housing Agency decided to activate an emergency contract, considering that an ordinary tender would have taken months.
The Administration consulted several companies in the sector and finally awarded the actions to Servihogar Gestión 24 Horas SL, the only one that declared it was available to undertake the repairs within the required period. The contract sets a maximum of five days to start the work and five months to complete it, with penalties of up to 10% of the amount per week of delay.
The problem, furthermore, is not new. In recent weeks, the Community of Madrid had already had to resort to another urgent intervention to replace 80 boilers in public housing after the company in charge of maintenance did not carry out the planned repairs, as published by Infobae. That action responded to breakdowns that could cause gas leaks, carbon monoxide poisoning, fires or explosions, according to the Administration itself.
The new contract now expands the scope of the problem: it is not only about thermal installations, but also about hundreds of repairs accumulated in installations, structures and basic elements of the homes, which has forced the Social Housing Agency to intervene to repair almost a thousand pending incidents in its public park.
