DOWNANDOUT

Does anyone have building/contents insurance against 'Okupas'? Can you recommend any insurance companies I could contact to arrange a policy ?

DOWNANDOUT

Update on our tenant eviction 'using the laughable Spanish express eviction laws' - now ongoing 2.5 years and pending.

1. The tenant was given 1 months grace due to his claim of vulnerability .
2. The judges instructed another court office (called SCNE) to arrange a new eviction date (that was in mid-July 2020 ) . They normally take 10 days but in our case they have taken 9 weeks and still no news . It shouldn't take that long to confirm an eviction date ?
3. In the meantime , the tenant raised a petition requesting suspension of any eviction because of COV19 concerns.
4. Our lawyer responded to the petition quoting the laws /process that needs to be adhered to , plus the fact that the tenant is using free legal aid to delay the eviction process by dismissing 4 lawyers.
5. The court rejected the tenants petition and gave him 5 days to appeal against their decision.
6. On the 5th day the tenants lawyer has drafted another petition (which the courts are now considering) . They haven't yet suspended the eviction process or sent the petition for our lawyer to respond to.
7. We are still waiting for the SCNE confirmed date of eviction.

There you have it in all its glory - the wonderful Spanish court system , utterly biased, anti-landlord and anti-justice. Just keep dragging out the eviction hoping that the landlords will give up their properties for nothing .

I might have to raise an appeal to the EU Courts if we cannot get justice via this terrible judicial system.

RobGre

We have a family of okupados in our finca and occasionally the idea of trying to evict them officially crops up but someone always points out how difficult it would be. I think your story only confirms that.

missile

this post should be compulsory reading for would be BTL investors

DOWNANDOUT

Yes , its the free legal aid that makes it a win-win scenario for them . The lawyers are all waiting for cases like this because its a good source of income from the 'State' .

What makes me even more angry is that we have an email sent to us from our previous 'useless' lawyers where the tenant contacted them and offered to pay 40k euros for our flat (ie. even though he owed us 36k over a period of 10 years). Yet he was still able to get free legal aid.

DOWNANDOUT

So are you having to pay all their utility bills while they squat on your estate?

inbarcelona

Yes. I think you can be arrested.
And you can´t even have the electric and water cut off.

I think I would have got a bunch of heavies pay them a visit to get them out and to hell with the consequences. My rage would be at boiling point.

inbarcelona

A friend of mine let his flat out. After the initial first months rent they didn´t pay a thing. My friend even had to pay for their water and electric. Took him 2 years to get them out.

I would NEVER rent a property out in Spain. I did it in London with one of my flats. They paid the rent ok...but when they moved out I had to have the whole flat repainted.

snikpoh

Worth looking at the new legislation about squatters in the press this week and last

DOWNANDOUT

The new legislation is the death knell for any landlords who own more than 2 properties in Spain . The new laws makes it virtually impossible to evict tenants or squatters from their premises .I also think any existing lease contracts for tenancy would have to be extended for 10 years. Any backlog of rent would be loaned out to the tenant to pay the landlord but allowing them 6 years grace to pay it back to the State.

We only have one property , therefore we were lucky that the new laws didn't apply otherwise we'd have wasted many thousands of euros in court charges and lawyer fees paid over the period of 2.5 years.

RobGre

I believe they don't pay utilities and both the water and electricity have been turned off multiple times but the family appear to know how to circumvent this obstacle.

inbarcelona

I believe that there are a lot of people who don´t pay water and electric bills but they have a way of connecting to the supply....I´ve no idea how.
The companies know this but do nothing about it....they just add the cost onto legitimate bill payers.

Moses2013

Pretty easy to do and even a 4 star hotel close to where we are took electricity from street lighting back in 2016 after Endesa cut their connection due to unpaid bills of €150,000
The town hall discovered this and shut down the hotel but happens all the time.

inbarcelona

Actually I remember reading about that.

DOWNANDOUT

Update:

The judge has dismissed the tenants appeal against the court ruling (ie. to progress the eviction as per rule of Law). I tried to decipher the judges ruling (we don't speak Spanish) using Google and it seems that this time he isn't allowed to appeal again. So I think we are getting closer to the end of this saga although I imagine the tenant might trash the place before he leaves and leave us with debts for unpaid utility bills like electricity, water, broadband , communidad , etc (they might already be cut off).

He owes us over 11k euros because of unpaid rent /court costs and I suspect we won't get a penny off him if he declares himself bankrupt .