DOWNANDOUT

My father doesn't remember if he had a spare set of keys (he's 90 now and almost blind) . They may have been with the 'letting agents' we had at the time, but they went bust owing us money that the tenant paid them.

We couldn't arrange for duplicates because the tenant has the only set and we've had no access to the flat since he moved in (ie. 2007 and stopped paying since Sept 2009).

We've already paid for a locksmith to accompany the court officials and change the locks immediately on eviction (of course that won't stop the tenant or any friends of his from breaking in again).

No, we will not be employing a Gestor as we are running out of cash now (over 20k spent so far).

DOWNANDOUT

I think my 90 year old father and 84 year old aunt (co-owners) realised that fact after the 1st few years (they bought the place in 1980). They had no idea at all about managing a property abroad.

jonboy

You said a locksmith will accompany the court officials. Would the locksmith remove the communal door lock and replace with an new one and hand the new replacement keys to the President of the block on leaving? Most of those outer door locks are none too sophisticated.

DOWNANDOUT

Afraid not , he is only legally allowed to gain access and change the locks on our apartment door.

I spoke to my father today and he said when he last visited (over 20 years ago) the street entrance doors had no locks and all he had was a spare apartment key (which is obviously of no use to us because we are not allowed into our own property without the tenants permission).

I think they fitted new locks about 5 years ago but obviously the 'President of the Block' gave one of keys to her son (ie. the tenant) and not to us. She has broken 'Community Statute' rules by trying to personally benefit from another owners 'unit' within the block . We will need to consider whether its worth asking for an independent audit of the books and requesting an emergency AGM to have her 'Presidency' revoked.

DOWNANDOUT

Once this tenant is evicted , how would we be able to prevent him breaking back in? Even security doors wouldn't be enough as the only people who could raise an alarm would be the adjacent flat owner (his parents).

I imagine the only way is a burglar alarm or movement cameras inside the flat where we could monitor any break-in from the UK and save the video on some 'cloud' storage . If the tenant or any of his friends break in , we could easily call the local police and provide the necessary evidence.

Problem is getting the time to install a broadband link or are there other ways to remotely monitor our property? Actually , the tenant may already have access to the internet because I've seen you-tube videos he's published.

How much would a good burglar alarm cost and are they 24 hour monitored or just standalone?

Moses2013

Good points. I am also currently looking at options and don't have any internet at property. I found a camera that apparently works with a sim card and not even electricity required if you use solar panel. You obviously need a mobile contract with data plan or at least enough credit but the one with motion sensor would only go on when it detects movement and you have push notifications and email alerts. It also has alarm and voice alerts, so seems like a good option https://reolink.com//product/reolink-go-pt/

Mark604

A motion detector set up to play a couple of dogs barking/growling from inside the apartment might also help.

jonboy

You might as well just let it out to a couple of local expats for a really, really low rent. They house sit the place and when you are in a suitable position (if ever) you can move them on far more easily than the present inhabitant. Advertise asap in the local expat rag/internet forum and see who fits the bill? Make sure you advise them of the peculiarities of the situation, forewarned is helpful for them. Do not blame me if it all goes tits up though!

DOWNANDOUT

Interesting product but it looks like its for outdoors and Spain is not on their list of compatible countries.

Moses2013

If you open up list further Spain is listed with Vodafone or Orange for example https://reolink.com//product/reolink-go-pt/

Palmerston

I'm so sorry to hear of your plight, DOWNANDOUT. It sounds like a brutal experience.

Moses, that link you provided looks promising, but their system would need very good quality audio. The supplier says it runs on batteries and therefore won't be loud, and to contact them if you need better quality audio.

It'd be important to have good enough 2-way speakers so they will pick up noise from attempts to get through the door (provided the property isn't in a noisy area because that could drown out any noise from the attempted door entry). You'll then be alerted remotely and be able to hear their attempted entry, rather than rely on sensors because, by then, the intruders are already inside.

You would also want to be clearly heard outside the property, through the speakers, so that the intruders will hear you whilst they're still outside, trying to get in. Hopefully, that would stop them in their tracks because they'd know that their every action is being monitored. They may even think someone's inside. It could buy you vital time to alert the police of intruders attempting entry before they get in.

I still wouldn't rule out a security door. They're far superior to wooden ones (I'm assuming yours are wood). Wooden frames just aren't thick enough to provide sufficient resistance. They'd fail before the best quality locks. Security doors are steel with steel frames, finished to a style and colour of your choice so they blend in well with their environment and look like regular doors. Would-be intruders would need angle grinders, plenty of replacement blades and plenty of time to make any impact on them. Meanwhile, a very heavy boot can take a wooden door off its hinges in seconds.

DOWNANDOUT

We have some FOSCOM IP cameras that we could set up in the flat which has its own alarm and motion detectors . That alarm might scare off some intruders if we also stuck some stickers on the door warning that alarms were in place. The local locksmith does also install security doors and we were considering fixing one after the tenant is evicted but I've heard some horror stories about people breaking through brick walls to gain occupation of properties. In our particular case , the tenant would have all the time in the world to break in as his parents apartment (there are only 2 on each floor) is right next to us and its easy for him to move his belongings back and forth .

We'd have to set up some account with a local ISP or maybe Moviestar (ie. I think they are part of Telefonica) and link the cameras via their network to our own local UK ISP network . I don't think WI-FI connection to local 'masts' (is it using 4G?) in the apartment area is very dependable and I've read some poor reviews regarding service connectivity/availability and blurry or stuttering images. I think linking the camera by wi-fi to a plugged in router with a hard-wired ethernet connection might be the best way to monitor the flat 24 hrs a day. Plus we'd probably have to pay for any recording to be download into some ISP cloud area .

All of this is unnecessary cost but I suppose we might have to pay until we get time and more cash saved to sell off the property.

With regards the pending eviction , I've been advised by a British locksmith (who has branches all over Spain) , that the locksmith should be able to bypass the locked street entrance doors. I am double-checking that fact with my lawyer to confirm if it's legal to do so . I hope it is legal as it would make us less anxious about the next eviction attempt being suspended.

We were wondering if its a good idea to forewarn the local police that we are evicting the tenant and will not be renting out our flat . Couldn't this be deemed as proof against possible squatters entering our property and forging 'Lease Contracts' as if they have a legal right to be in the property?

VFR

This company can monitor your property via the onboard sim & in Downandouts case I would be looking to get them in ASAP after the toe rag has been booted out.
Will inform you and can call the police etc.

https://www.securitas-direct.com (there are other company's)

DOWNANDOUT

Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

1. The tenants parents live next to us so its easy for him to get evicted and then break back in again with his belongings
2. His parents are the ' Community of Owners' and probably have spare keys for the street entrance doors but will refuse to give them to us.
3. The tenant is supposed to pay the Comunidad 400 euros pa , but I bet he stopped paying since 2018 (when his appeal to the Supreme Court failed) and that his parents are accumulating the debt against our property . Being the 'Community of Owners' they can try and repossess our property via the civil courts for non-payment of Comunidad . That could involve another court case and more costs on us or we would have no choice but to pay 3 years backlog (ie. another 1.2k).
4. There was an embargo on the property for 11k where some building company was fraudulently using our flat address as some registered address . Their tax debts were being levied against our property! That cost us over 2k to get it removed via our solicitor plus another £200 to remove the embargo notification from the deeds via the land registry.

To pre-empt his trashing our place before the eviction I managed to get building insurance but it cost over £245 for a 2 bed apartment.

The 2 main reasons for the expensive policy were:

1. Is it less than 500m from the beach (its 120 yds away)
2. Is there a commercial property under the the flat - yes , there is a bar/restaurant at ground floor level 2 floors beneath.

It's a never ending nightmare and I just want to get rid of this 'baggage ' forever but we won't allow this tenant to get our property, no matter how determined he and his parents are (just out of principle).

DOWNANDOUT

Okay - here is the update on our '2 years 7 month' express eviction process .

We got a new eviction date yesterday where 2 court officials and our procurador managed to get through the street entrance doors and knock on the door of our flat .

The court officials said that a young lady (with her 10 year old child) opened the door and stated that they had no knowledge of our tenant living in the flat and that they had been renting the flat out to an African man over a month ago . Now that sounds a bit weird so I think the officials meant to say that the lady claimed she had rented the flat from an African man over a month ago .

They asked her for a copy of the Lease Title but she didn't have one and she was behaving very suspiciously so the officials demanded to see copies of any utility bills. She actually found some electricity and water bills which had the name of our tenant on them, so she was either lying when she claimed no knowledge of our tenant or didn't realise that the name on the bills was the same person.

Anyhow , they gave her 10 days to leave the property (ie. 4th Dec ) or they would forcibly evict her when they return on the 22nd December !!!!!!! Now that just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Why demand she leave in 10 days and then give her the opportunity to stay longer before they arrive on the 22nd December? It's insane!

So basically the eviction is suspended again and we roll on and on and on...................

I can only assume the following:

Theory 1
1. The tenant has been subletting (assuming a false identity as an African gentleman)
2. His subletting tenants have been paying the utility bills even though its under our tenants name.
3. He has been earning rent off our flat and probably making more money per annum than he owes us via the courts (probably 10's of thousands of euros over the last 10 years).
4. He paid over 18k in backlog of rent to stop the original eviction 2.5 years ago so that he could appeal and delay the eviction.
5. He obviously has money hidden away but still managed to get free legal aid to delay eviction and continue with his fraudulent activities.
6. No wonder he is doing everything in his power to stop/delay the eviction over these last 3 years.

Theory 2
1. He paid some young woman and her son to be in our flat on eviction day to cause confusion and suspend the eviction.
2. The young woman and her son is some friend of his and offered to lie to the court officials to stall the eviction (why would anyone do that? Seems a very risky thing to do ).

If the young lady had no 'Lease Title' and was caught lying about not knowing our tenant , why did the court officials suspend the eviction ? I understand it would be a cold-blooded thing to do to a mother and child but our tenant must have known they wouldn't do it (or his free legal aid lawyers advised him of this ploy - I would bet my life that they have been giving him all the advice he needs to delay eviction) .

But legally , the court officials did not follow the process and should have evicted them (at our cost) and we cannot do anything about it apart from submitting a formal complaint about the biased behaviour of some of the court officials.

All I can say to anyone planning to buy and rent a property in Spain - "DON'T DO IT"