DOWNANDOUT

Just been going through all the detail of the evidence that the tenant and his solicitor used to win their case although I cannot speak or read Spanish (just using google translator to get an idea). The tenant produced copies of rent payment receipts to our letting agent (now no longer in business), a statement saying his comunidad payments were all up to date but with a little sentence at the bottom that has confused me , so I'll write it out word for word later underneath. But he also produced years of paid bills for electricity but not under his name? The bills are still in the name of the previous tenant who died over 6 years ago. So why wasn't that mentioned in the court and there must be a reason he didn't inform the electricity company (wonder why he kept it a secret from them?).

Now going back to the sentence that was mentioned on one of the court documents that said the tenant was up to date on the comunidad payments. The last sentence in that document says the following:

Aparte abono la derrama generada en 2009 por el arreglo de fachada que asciende a la cantidad de 2462.36 euros.

When I used the google translator it says:

Apart payment the spill generated in 2009 by the facade arrangement amounting to the amount of 2462.36 euros.

I am guessing he never paid for the structural repairs so he can't offset that against the outstanding rental debt. If true then he's going to find it difficult creating invoices for structural repairs inside the flat that will amount to over 18k euros. Anyway, we can only hope he just leaves but our lawyer thinks that his mother/father/uncle have all moved into our flat (saving themselves paying rent on their own apartments) while living in our flat for free. Maybe this is why they are fighting so hard to stop eviction.

DOWNANDOUT

Just thought I'd provide an update on what's happened in case others are ever in the same situation. The first court case was lost because our solicitor tried to evict the tenant as if he had no rights (even though he had paid rent for over a year which proves he had a rental contract although not formally in writing). The total court and tenants solicitor costs means we will now have to pay 4500 euros . The tenant didn't have to pay a penny because Spain allows free legal aid to people who don't have enough income . It is obvious their solicitor is now taking us to the cleaners charging almost 3600 euros for their 'efforts' defending the tenants rights.
Okay , so now we have raised another court case for eviction for non-payment of rent (for a debt of 18k euros). We are only allowed to go back 5 years because of some statute of limitation rule (he actually owes us 28,000 euros ). So every month he can delay payment , his debt remains the same while we lose out.
Anyhow , this tenant received the eviction burofax, signed confirming receipt and then tried again for legal aid (and was successful again). His solicitor thinks he will lose the case so talked to our lawyer about getting an agreement together for us to waive the debt if they left the property.
Of course we didn't trust the tenant because we found out that he was putting on an act during the 1st court case (pretending to be dimwitted) to get sympathy from the judge. We found a you-tube video of him and he was quite literate. In fact, he was actually a 'President' of some small centrist political party in Spain. So the agreement included clauses that we would waive the debt provided the flat was in good repair, all the utility bills were paid and that he would not attempt re-entry to squat , plus he would pay some of the 4500 euro costs. The agreement was sent to the solicitor , his family were willing to sign but the son would not and they ended up with almost a physical fight between father and son in the solicitors office. In the end they didn't sign the agreement which makes me think the tenant was thinking about re-entering the property as a squatter (another expensive 18 month wait to evict them while they run up high utility bills and trash the place). So here we go again , wait another 5 -6 months because of the overload of eviction cases in Spain . The tenant will just wait it out , go to court and then declare himself bankrupt if he loses the case, without having to pay a penny (although he will have to leave but could re-enter and squat). But if he gets the case thrown out on a technicality (via free legal aid lawyers) , he gets to stay while we pay the court costs again (another 4500 euros!!). Its a WIN WIN scenario for the tenant and this why Spanish Laws are so terribly biased towards wrongdoers.

If I was a person thinking of buying a property abroad I would avoid buying in Spain like the plague. We have no choice but to pursue this to the end even if it costs us another 10k euros because the flat is worth at least 75k euros. What we have here is someone who hasn't worked for a living , has been living free in our flat for over 8 years and now refuses to lose his lifestyle. The son is a just an immoral lazy good for nothing who doesn't care what damage this will do to his own family . If he loses the case, the police and bailiffs will just evict him and his family out onto the streets. Does he really want to risk that for his elderly mother and father (who I think have moved into the flat with him , rent free ). The whole legal profession in Spain is basically useless and there is no justice , just a gravy train for lawyers , judges and other court officials, doing their utmost to drag the procedures for as long and as expensively as possible.

FranE

I know you are very, very angry, and I have a lot of sympathy for you, but I think if you break it down and lay the responsibility where it properly lies, you might feel a little better about it all.


I think your father and aunt have to take some of the responsibility for the position they are in. They bought in about 1987 (30 years ago) but did nothing to regularise the deeds until some time after 2008 (19 years later) when the block president discovered this and advised her son to stop paying rent. I can see her point: he had been paying the letting agents, but when they went bust (and this can happen anywhere), how was the block president and her son to know that you had the right to demand/receive rent ?


I'm not sure why they bought the property, apparently just to rent out (and "for a pittance"). Rented property has to be managed by the landlord. It's difficult enough for a landlord if their rental property is in the UK - you get unpaid rent and bad tenants anywhere but at least in the UK you can speak the language and be on the spot to deal with things. Your tenant appears to have been just "trying it on" since 2015 when you regularised the deeds and there was a tenancy created by your demands for rent. Again, I can see his point - not morally, but realistically. Why not ? Foreign landlord, not familiar with the legal system, are they going to bother? Let's try it on and see what happens. In the UK that would have involved court proceedings, but not with the problems you've had. However, I appreciate there may have been special circumstances in your father's case.


Your solicitors were clearly negligent over the first court case. You can't blame the tenant for that. In the UK you would not have had to pay the solicitors' fees, nor those of the legally aided tenant. But I understand that professional negligence insurance is not compulsory for Spanish solicitors so you have certainly been stiffed there. As for the tenants legal costs, they were not "free", they were funded by some body or another which obviously has the right to recover them in the event of a win (as happens in the UK too). Having no redress against the solicitors is a failing in the Spanish legal system.


You say you are concerned that the tenant knows "all the intricacies in avoiding eviction and payment by using legal loopholes", and I fully understand your concerns in view of your past experiences. However, your solicitor should also know them! Have you asked him what risks there are? That said, if Spanish solicitors, with no requirement to have insurance, get a case wrong there seems to be no comeback on them anyway. In the UK, compulsory professional negligence insurance is very expensive and no-one wants their premiums to go up next year, or even be refused cover meaning they couldn't practice at all, nor get a slap on the wrist at the very least, from the Law Society. Another failing of the Spanish legal system, I agree.


In the UK you can't get legal aid unless there is a reasonable chance of winning. You have to have some realistic grounds for defending the case. Ask your solicitor if this is the case in Spain. Do you have any evidence that his solicitor "thinks he will lose the case" ? If so, perhaps your solicitor could report that to whoever grants legal aid in Spain. If you are relying on the fact that his solicitor is trying to do a deal, that's not necessarily evidence that he thinks his client will lose. To attempt a negotiated outcome is a reasonable thing for any solicitor to do. Might be worth asking your solicitor about this, though.


Finally, your concerns about the tenant breaking back in and trashing the place while squatting. This is a risk anywhere, but just by a previous tenant but by anyone. It is your responsibility to secure any property against squatters, especially if it has just been repossessed. Your father and aunt will have to do whatever is necessary to prevent it after they regain possession, just as they would anywhere.


You say you wouldn't advise anyone to buy in Spain. I'm not sure that's fair. I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to buy a rental property in Spain if they didn't actually live there so as to keep an eye on things and deal with problems promptly. I also wouldn't advise anyone to ignore for 20 years the fact that they weren't on the title deeds.


Sorry if I sound harsh. You are in a dreadful situation, but personally I find it easier to deal with problems if I can learn some lessons from them, and especially if I can acknowledge that some of the blame lies with me.

jonboy

Good post FranE!

A bitter pill for the OP but any sort of business dealings require knowledge of the subject in advance as hindsight is painfully expensive. So many well meaning/relaxed landlords end up being hurt financially and emotionally. Not a business to go into blindly. I do realise that tenants also get shafted.

Hopefully the OP scrutinises his solicitor well before proceeding once again.

lurchio

FranE, said in a balanced and fair way.With you on your points.

DOWNANDOUT

Yes , I agree with a lot of what has been posted by FranE.

My father and aunt were ignorant of the Spanish Laws at the time. Although back in the 80's a lot of property contracts were enacted with exchange of suitcases of money and bribes to notaries to change deed details . There are probably many 1000's of properties whose deeds are still registered under old owners or the company that built the blocks.

We did have a contract of purchase document that proved we paid the agent (for the owner of the property) the sale price . That was sent to the tenant but they ignored that proof. And yes , they still didn't pay us a penny when the court ruled that we were the legal owners after I tracked down the agent who sold it to us in the first instance (he gave evidence in the court).

So although they may have had a right to defer paying of rent, by law they should have banked the rent with a local notary until the deed issues were sorted (but they didn't). Therefore , they had a choice to proceed correctly but chose the option to try and live in our property for free. They are indirectly to blame for any court case costs where we tried to evict, them no matter how negligent the lawyers were. They should be punished for whatever wrong they have done but the courts are biased towards tenants who 'milk' the legal system in Spain (especially with regards 'free legal aid' - it is free from the perspective of the tenant). The tenant is pretending that he doesn't have any work or savings and is only claiming dole to get this 'free legal aid' but I know he is working and have tracked him down to a workplace . In fact after the first court case, the tenant offered to pay 45k euros for the flat , so they have savings, but hidden away from the authorities. I now need to inform the necessary authorities who may deny him that right (although I doubt it) and he will have to risk his own money when fighting the eviction case. So its not a WIN-WIN situation for this tenant anymore (I hope) and maybe that will convince him to leave the premises without us going to court.

Sorry , but I must repeat what I said before about buying a flat in Spain. Yes , I agree you must be fully acquainted with the rules and understand all the pitfalls (and know the lingo too). But the laws are laws and they are unfairly biased towards tenants and wrongdoers.

Many thanks for your post .

FranE

The courts should certainly punish wrong-doers, but they can only make legal judgments, not moral ones. Your solicitors based their case on him having no tenancy, but it appears that he did, based on your having demanded rent from him. Your solicitors were wrong in law, the tenant was right in law. What else could the court do?


But I do think that attacking his legal aid entitlement would be a way forward. If he had to pay his own fees, that would make a big difference to his current attitude of just letting the whole thing run on and on. Legally aided litigants having nothing to lose.


But I do wish you the best of luck. This must be a nightmare for all of you.

Notdunroamin

May I respectfully suggest that if you want people to read your posts that you take a little more time with punctuation and use paragraphs.

It might be readable on a portrait format tablet or even a smartphone but on a wider and landscape PC or laptop screen with lines of around 40 words or so it becomes all but physically impossible for the eye to track from the end of one line to the beginning of the next.

jonboy

I cannot see your point in relation to this thread. Your post appears the same as all before it, except that it is not on topic!

MikeJ

I think it's a formatting complaint. Compare post#1 with (for example) post #18. However, I do have some sympathy with the OP as I have noticed that uploading a text block can sometimes strip out some of the format effectors so it may not be his fault. Bearing in mind his gut wrenching story he should be cut some slack

jonboy

Gut wrenching story, he is not the OP.
Although he may have his own troubles, I do not know.

FranE

Before we all get our knickers in a twist:


I believe Notdunroamin was commenting on the OP (DOWNANDOUT)'s posts.


Post #1 was from DOWNANDOUT. Post #18 was from me (FranE).


DOWNANDOUT does tend to post what I believe is called a "wall of text", which can be difficult to read sometimes. But perhaps he's just not used to typing, writing, or composing posts on forums. Whatever - it's OK, everyone who has responded to his sad story has managed to understand him.