InfoVaticana has had access to the simple registry note of the property located at Lagasca Street 116, corner with Diego de León, in Madrid, where the central headquarters of the Opus Dei in Spain is located. The document reveals that the building does not belong to the prelature or any ecclesiastical entity, but to a public limited company and a civil foundation, in a legal scheme similar to that of other properties linked to the Work, such as the Torreciudad sanctuary.
According to the simple note, the estate, registered in the Property Registry of Madrid number 1 with folio number 37,970, is listed as a “Service Building” and not as a temple or religious property. The total ownership (100%) corresponds to the commercial company Inmobiliaria Urbana Moncloa, S.A., holder of the bare ownership since the year 1966. It is a ten-story building with more than seven thousand square meters built, originating from an old hotel license.
The use of the property does not correspond to the Opus Dei, but to another civil entity: the Fundación Iniciativas de Acción Social, which holds the 100% usufruct for a period of twenty years, granted by public deed signed on July 15, 2013, before the notary Francisco Javier Vigil Quiñones Parga. The document establishes that the foundation may use the property until the year 2033, when the usufruct right will expire. The Opus Dei, as a personal prelature, does not appear at any point in the note as the owner or usufructuary of the building.
In the property’s registry history, an old mortgage is still recorded in favor of Banco Crédito Construcción in the 1960s, another indication that the asset has been managed from its origin as a private law asset and not as ecclesiastical patrimony. Nor is there any record of dedication to worship or any limitation for religious reasons.
The situation at Lagasca 116 confirms the same model that InfoVaticana revealed in the documentation related to Torreciudad. In both cases, the assets linked to the Opus Dei are under the ownership of commercial companies and temporary usufructs in favor of civil foundations, without direct participation of the prelature or the Vatican. In the case of Torreciudad, the estate belongs to Inmobiliaria Aragonesa, S.A., and the usufruct in favor of the Patronato de Torreciudad has a duration of twenty years, from 2015 to 2035.
These legal structures, although perfectly legal, mean that the Holy See has no capacity for direct intervention over these assets, even in the event that the prelature were reformed or suppressed. Rome can modify statutes and canonical structures, but it cannot alter the rights registered in the Property Registry, which are subject exclusively to Spanish civil law.
The case of the Madrid headquarters is especially relevant because it confirms that the Opus Dei’s asset management model in Spain responds to a civil and commercial architecture consolidated for decades. The properties, centers, and foundations associated with the Work are registered in the name of their own legal entities, independent of the prelature and with defined usufruct periods, making them untouchable from a canonical point of view.
InfoVaticana publishes this document as part of its series of investigations into the patrimonial and legal structure of Catholic institutions in Spain, in the context of the upcoming approval by the Holy See of the new Statutes of the Opus Dei.
Document: Simple registry note of estate no. 37,970, Property Registry of Madrid no. 1, C/ Diego de León 12 – C/ Lagasca 116. Ownership: Inmobiliaria Urbana Moncloa, S.A. (bare ownership 100%). Usufruct: Fundación Iniciativas de Acción Social (100%, 20 years from 07/15/2013).