Barcelona is one of the cities most affected by the housing crisis in Spain
With the inflated incomes and the lack of accessible housing in Spain, there are more and more people to practice inquiry-that is, they start as tenants with contract, but then stop paying income and occupy the house.
For nine months, José Ignacio Ponce He lived in an old three square meter van parked in front of the building where he has a three -bedroom and 102 square meter apartment in Valencia, the third largest city in Spain.
The reason: your property had been taken by a “fourteen”-the term used by the Spaniards to designate tenants who practice the new tactic to enter a property with a lease, to then stop paying.
“My life came down. All I had ended up to a warehouse, abandoned. My records, my clothes, my furniture, my memories. And the Spanish law allows it to happen. It’s crazy“Jose tells BBC News Brazil.
A “foster”It is the new form of illegal real estate occupation in Spain – denounces the platform of those affected by occupations (PAO), an association that brings together small owners also affected by direct occupations of households across the country.
While the latest government data account for 15 289 cases of illegal occupation Of real estate in 2023, the platform estimates that this number reaches 80,000-especially due to the exponential increase in “inquiry” cases, which are not accounted for in official statistics.
In Spain, like in other countries, the large number of houses and apartments leased for tourists He withdrew thousands of real estate from the market that were previously destined for housing.
But, according to jurists, what differentiates the problem in Spain from other European countries is that the laws of the country are considered More Lenients making it difficult to resume occupied properties.
The Spanish Law does not allow the resumption to force From a busy property: If the owner tries to change the door lock, he can be reported to the police by the occupants.
And by law, owners of employed properties are required to continue to pay the bills of basic services such as light and gas.
For the Spanish Penal Code, changing the lock of a busy house or cutting basic services to the property can be considered a coercion crime – according to which the accused seeks to restrict freedom or force an individual to do something against his will.
It is a crime that provides for a fine and even sentence from six months to three years in prisonand the occupant of the property may also request compensation to the owner for loss and damage.
“Basically, what Spanish law does not allow owners to do justice with their own hands,” says Josep Riba, a criminalist lawyer and partner at the Cuatrecasas law firm, one of the largest in Spain.
According to PAO, the phenomenon has been aggravated by the real Decree-Law 11/2020, which at the height of the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic dumping of people and families in vulnerable situations and without housing alternative. Since 2020, the decree has been renewed year after year.
Politicization
The problem eventually turned into a political flag, with right -wing parties to accuse the government of failing in programs for the construction of new homes and not having political courage to change the law.
By its side, the government claims that false news on the subject distort the perception And they take a third of the Spaniards to be afraid of having their home busy, while the problem does not directly affect even 1% of dwellings.
Government supporters claim that the numbers released by the press are inflated by fake news from right -wing groups to cause a climate of fear, insecurity and distrust of the government.
In a speech in Congress last year, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (Spanish Socialist Socialist Party, PSOE), said that “the dissemination of false news makes 34% of Spaniards afraid of having their home occupied when this problem is when this problem affects less than 0.06% of houses of the country ”.
The Calvary of José
José Ignacio Ponce’s Calvary began in August 2023, when the tenant Definitely stopped paying the income After paying only a small portion of the amount in the previous two months.
“The neighbors of the above apartment, which I had known many years ago, said their daughter needed a place to live. I thought it would be a good idea to lease to a person with references. But I was wrong“Remember José.
A contractual clause established that the tenant should leave the property after two months of default. But in January 2024, she was still in the apartment with her two young children. Without paying.
“And that January, I separated from my girlfriend. I had nowhere to go. I had to go back to my houseBut the tenant was still in the property, ”says José.
“I would tell you, ‘if your parents live in a four-bedroom apartment upon upstairs of my property, why don’t you move there? Or if you can’t pay income, why don’t you contact social services? But don’t leave me on the street!’ I tried to dialogue, but it was no use. ”
José did not even think about changing the lock to retrieve the property. “The tenant and her father would certainly like me to do that. But I knew the law prohibitsand that they could have denounced me to the police, ”he says.
It was then that at 51, Joseph went to live inside his van – a 1989 Volkswagen T3 California, which he used to use to travel on vacation or on weekends. He then decided to contact the platform of those affected by the occupations.
“They helped me a lot to trace a strategy. Because recovering a property busy in Spain is like Play a chess start“, José defines.
The tenant, he says, already had its strategy: to declare itself vulnerable, and take advantage of legal protections that make it difficult to eviction against people in vulnerable situations.
What the tenant did not expect is that Joseph, now recorded as a resident of a van, also if he were to declare vulnerable.
“And that was a key factor to solve the problem. Otherwise, I would have TWO OR ARE THREE YEARS To recover my property, ”he says.
“The judge said in the sentence that when two parts are vulnerable, always earns the part that owns the property. He has priority. The tenant was vulnerable, but I am. The judge also took into consideration the fact that the tenant parents lived upstairs in a four -bedroom apartment,” he notes.
Despite the court order for the tenant to vacate the apartment last July 29, she did not leave the property. And the courts went into summer recess.
“I suffered from heat waveswith 45 degrees inside the van ”, revolts José.
When the police finally arrived to effect the eviction action, on September 26, the tenant demanded that he sign a role responsible for the two cats she had in the property. It was another trick to paralyze the eviction, says Joseph:
“A lot of people use this trick. Do you know why? Because the law prohibits abandoned animals. If I denied signing, the judge would determine that the eviction action could not be performed. ”
“When a TV team came to filming my return to the apartment, the tenant family started Give strong blows on the floor From the apartment from above, to make all the possible noise and prevent the shoot. The TV team got scared, because they hit so much on the floor that the house was shaking, ”he says.
José never decided to return to live in the apartment. He put the property for sale and temporarily moved to an aunt’s apartment, 30 kilometers from Valencia, while plans to buy a property elsewhere.
“I couldn’t live quietly in the apartment, with these people living upstairs.”
