For a few years, housing squatting in Spain has been portrayed as. Some television programs, some press holders and advertisements of security companies have fed the idea that anyone can lose their home overnight, that there are mafias behind the phenomenon and that the owners are unprotected. However, the data show that it is not such a frequent or so out of control, and in most cases people who resort to this crime have a more complex reality that is counted, according to judicial statistics.
Spain has 27 million homes, according to the latest estimates of the Ministry of Housing. Last year, 16,400 complaints were registered with the search or usurpation of real estate, according to the data collected by the Ministry of Interior. This represents a maximum impact of 0.06% on the total park assuming that all these known events end in conviction. If you look in more detail, and contrast with the statistics of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), it is observed that of the total complaints of housing interference, only 7% were illegal occupations of inhabited houses or second residences. That is, last year the Courts received 2,309 complaints for habitual housing, which means that most cases this phenomenon occurs in empty real estate. In addition, the increase in complaints in the last decade (in 2014 there were just over 10,000 complaints), as explained by statistical sources, that in 2015 there was a change in the Criminal Code and in the Citizen Security Law that made another type of crimes and sanctions begin to be computed.
Something so anecdotal that some judges consulted insist that, in 20 years of experience, they have seen such a case on one or two occasions. The National Statistics Institute also supports this conclusion; The latest data corresponding to 2023 show that firm dwelling sentences – the crime that the illegal entry implies in a housing inhabited – amounted to 218 throughout the country. With these data, “the narrative of the Okupa epidemic is more sustained in fear than in statistics,” explains Jaime Palomera Zaidel, director of the Housing and City Area of the Urban Research Institute of Barcelona. In his opinion, “from the pandemic, the narrative about the Okupa threat It has grown disproportionately, distorting the reality of the housing market and diverting the attention of true problems, such as the lack of affordable housing and the growing inequality in access to property. ” His opinion resembles that of Elisa Barragán, lawyer of Vilches Abogados, who says that “a social alarm has been created without a base.”
Analysts and legal sources suggest that. This has also been recognized by different members of the Government, including the Minister of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, Pablo Bustinduy, and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who on different occasions have warned that disinformation has made a high percentage of citizens theme that their home can be squatted. The growing concern has encouraged the proliferation of alarms and insurance to protect itself from this apparent problem. According to the Direct Line Insurer, currently in more than 70% of the new household insurance that the client adds coverage in front of the squatting, “which shows interest in being protected against this risk.”
Who bursts a house?
Judicial sources insist that the majority of people who open do so as a last resort, desperately, because they barely have another option. They are usually more vulnerable collective, which makes judicial treatment difficult. “We do not talk about organized criminals, but of families who cannot face a rental, young people in precariousness or people who have lost their jobs and have no resources to access a home,” they explain. “The problem is that, legally, they remain in a limbo. It is a situation of total weakness, ”they admit.
This insecurity is what a member of the Vallecas Assembly, which has shed a house of an Israeli fund for seven years. He is 27 years old and works in Environmental Education, charges 1,034 euros per month and, like the rest of the people he lives with, he admits not to have “the possibility of accessing a home in the current market”. After all these years facing eviction attempts, he acknowledges that “Okupar is not a simple choice. It entails the risk of facing the police, living with fear of eviction and having to repair houses in poor condition. Those who have another option, usually choose it. But it is also a way of questioning why there are empty homes for years while there are homeless, and criticizing real estate speculation. ”
The judges consulted explain that “the right to housing is not a fundamental right, but it is a governing principle of economic social policy”, which must be “reconciled” with the right to private property. In this sense, they emphasize what it is. “You have to know how to differentiate those situations that deserve not to pay the rent of those that directly do not want to pay,”
Same word, different crimes
“It has been confused between what is the squatting and what is the raid of the dwelling,” says Barragán. and it is a mild crime (only punished with a fine). On the other hand, the lodging of the dwelling is more serious and, although according to the lawyer, “technically they are not squatter,” refers to the entry into regular homes or second residences.
This conduct is exceptional so much that it is practically not seen in court, judicial sources point out. From INE statistics it follows how this trend has decreased more than 30% in a decade, from 315 convictions in 2013, full economic crisis, to 218 in 2023, last recorded data. Only in 2016 there was a slight rebound, reaching 357 resolutions against the kupantes. And in 2020 the figure reached its minimum of the entire historical series, with 185 sentences. Analysts insist that the economic consequences of the pandemic did not encourage the squatting, and that the confinement was decisive because it limited mobility.
On the other hand, there is what is colloquially called “inquiokupation” for those who stop paying the rent, but remain inside the property. Legally, this situation is non -payment and as experts stand out, it really has nothing to do with the phenomenon of the squatting, but with the breach or extinction of a contract for different reasons. In this regard, analysts insist that there is no widespread problem of delinquency, although the housing crisis is causing an increase in the number of homes that have difficulties in dealing with this expense and stop paying. “Lately, I am seeing people who cannot pay the rent or people who can, who are doing it, but finds no other floor with the same price for when the leasing contract expires,” says Barragán.
For its part, Palomera warns that “the real problem is the housing emergency, not the squatting. If the precariousness in access to housing is so high, it is surprising that there are no more empty housing usurpations. The reality is that for most people, kupar a house without a qualifying title is a last option, since it generates insecurity and uncertainty. ” Spain has about four million empty houses, mostly in areas with little demand. There are just over three million floors for rent, of which 15% belong to investment funds and another 10% are publicly owned, according to ministry data.
Pilar Manzano Escudero is crating one of those houses. She and her two daughters fled her house 10 years ago escaping her husband’s violence. Without having another place where to go, they ended up on an apartment that belongs to a bank. “When we arrived it was an abandoned house, without crystals and full of garbage. In these years I have been fixing it as I could. The bank has tried to evict four times and they have also offered me money to leave. But what I want is to allow me to pay an affordable rent and stay in what is already my home. They have never offered me that option or I have obtained an alternative from the administration. ”
In the last three years, the rent has registered an average interannual rebounds of 10%, according to the Bank of Spain. which represents an increase of 4.5% compared to the previous year, according to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). To this are added those lawsuits initiated by the owners who end an agreement before reaching trial, either because the tenant delivered the house, paid the monthlyities owed, the procedure was filed or there was a withdrawal. Last year, there were 25,971 of these cases, being the lowest figure registered since 2013.
If this figure is contrasted with the cases that do end with a sentence, it is observed that there is a much higher number that prefers to solve the problem before reaching trial. “It is easier to reach an agreement because the judicial procedures are much longer and they have to give a series of circumstances to be able to throw them, that almost no one fulfills them. Normally, the housing people without resources that are protected by the new laws, ”says Barragán. The judges apostilla that the average waiting time to resolve the demands for usurpation, raid or default is an unknown. Normally,.
