Is your empty home secure!
 

Reported in Sur that some Gypsy families have moved into empty homes in alhaurín de la torre. One of the comments below says that the town is lawless and recently an English owned home was broken into and stripped of everything. Despite neighbours calling during 24 hours the Police didn't attend until he rang and they came 15 mins later. He says they will get a shock when they arrive from the UK.

http://www.diariosur.es/v/20120319/m...-20120319.html

So, make sure yours is extra secure.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Seems to me that Gypsies do what they want anywhere in Europe seems that no country will make them follow the laws that the rest of us have to abide by. Just hope no one in residence when I come over next month. Still I could just go and squat in one of the empty houses! oh forgot not a Gypsy so they will kick me out and put me in jail no doubt.

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The guy speaks very eloquently about why they have taken the houses over

1. They have no job, no money and no homes. They were living in a field previously
2. They chose houses that didnt belong to anyone and werent for sale as they are unfit for habitation i.e. they are effectively abandoned buildings

It's not a perfect situation, but I would do the same in their circumstances, especially with 4 children in tow

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Maybe the guy does speak well re this situation and yes obviously he is in a crap situation but as the neighbours go on to say why did they struggle to buy and pay mortgages? If everyone just took what they wanted would you want to live amongst such people? The article does though also mention other properties with owners one who is apparently British who's houses have also been entered. Problem is as in the UK no violence to secure entry then very difficult to deal with. If people buy a home wherever and choose to not occupy it full time that does not mean that anyone can make free use of it, no matter how sympathetic you may be.

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The article doesnt mention British houses being entered. Jackytoo said someone mentioned this in the comments section. I didnt trawl through them to check

Yes I completely sympathise with the neighbours

Unfortunately when the law is an ass people have to do whatever they can. Everyone deserves a roof over their head. As the Spanish government will not provide these people with a house - and unemployment is at 35% in Andalucia, what do you propose they do?

How would you look after your small children and pregnant wife in these circumstances?

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Without knowing the full circumstances in person I would not comment further and will agree to disagree with you on just taking what is not yours, feel free to hand the keys of your property to who you want.

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May I suggest keeping ones dick in ones pants until things improve.

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I understand that if "squatters" live in a property over some period of time, then it's legally difficult to get rid of them. There have been a few cases of this around here in the past.

I suppose it's the same mindset which enables tenants to ignore paying rent and destroy the property, while the owners can't legally force them out.

Perhaps related to the same law that requires you to buy a permit to prevent people from trespassing on your property.

Just another example of typical socialist ideological mindset in practice: Penalise those who worked, invested and established something worthwhile, to provide incentive and support for those who didn't (don't? won't?).

On the other hand - for those numerous threads asking if it's good idea to move here when you have no job or Spanish skills, perhaps this is one positive reinforcement - Just tell them to find an empty house and move in!

Simples!

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Of course most people don't get what they deserve. It is like the increased vague and often misguided use of the words entitlement and freedom. The latest one in the UK is the freedom to have a family life. When did that automatically become the natural order of things. How long before owning a car and a TV become human rights. The whole human rights lobby and the European Court is degrading it's own cause.
So while I would like to see society ensure that all its citizens receive shelter let's not talk of deserving, entitlement or freedom. It is society or charity that should provide not people feeling that they have an inalienable right to it. Therein lies problems.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Again I ask, what should they do then?

It is morally correct to steal bread to feed your family, rather than have them starve
It is morally correct to squat in an empty house, rather than have your family sleeping on the streets

If society will not provide either a home, income or job for people then one must take drastic measures

Hands up those who would watch their children starve and shiver in the cold?

Maybe they should move to the UK :D

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Better accommodation than they would get in the UK, the housing stock provided for those on benefits is often sub standard.

Give the Gypsy's that housing development designed for 30,000 that was talked about in another thread, its empty just now.

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Well, one can argue about what is "right or wrong", and most anyone would support the belief that no one should ever go hungry or be without a roof....

But besides the unsustainable costs of "equalising" wealth, what the idealists never consider is the long-term effects on a society which penalises those most productive, while providing generous benefits to those who are not.

Socialism has always served to de-incentivise achievement, which ultimately results in a significantly poorer and less productive population, unable to compete with more incentivised and enterprising societies.

Sound familiar?

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I'm with you on that. The trouble with levelling and equality is that it always results in the vast majority being worse off and an increased feeling of demoralisation.

I'd probably do what I'd have to do to protect my family but that would be my personal decision. I wouldn't expect society as a whole to condone all my choices made in desperation. I might expect a Christian or moral society to be sympathetic and deal out any justice with a degree of empathy and consideration.

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I'm sure CM would think exactly the same if he popped off somewhere for a holiday and came back and found a load of gypsies installed in his house. (this assumes he has one, of course). I think this, like a lot of situations, is fine until it happens to you. I know I for one wouldn't be as understanding as he claims he's is, if I found I couldn't enter my home because of a load of okupas.

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this also happened about a year ago with a row of finished but unoccupied houses in Atarfe, within sight of the A92 interchange and the Cordoba road

the police raided, evicted and the houses were boarded up, there was still yellow tape all over last week.
I think the builder may have had a buyer or two at the time but nothing has happened on that score since the incident.

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Actually no, Santander has managed to sell off most of that 30,000 development at half price, so guess it wont be a ghost town for long

And those houses the gypsy family are living have been deemed unfit for habitation because of the poor quality of construction. The family is not taking any property away from anyone, it is simply lodging in a building that could collapse at any minute

You guys could have read the article to realise that :confused:

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

So you haven't read the article either? :thumbdown:

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Correct, but you can understand why the spanish families are complaining. Who would want to buy a new house, with a mortgage and find out they have gyppos as neighbours:eek:

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I hope you don't mind that I made one addition to your statement.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

And there lies the issue!

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The houses do have an owner a cooperative owns them but they have been unoccupied due to faults with them and a risk of collapse. No doubt should the buildings collapse these people that have illegally occupied them will no doubt sue the cooperative and win their case.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

I doubt it very much. They are unfit to live in and there is not a suing culture in Spain

Again, what is your solution? Do you realise that there are currently half a million people in Spain with zero income? These families are not entitled to one cent of help from the government. How do you expect them to live?

This is not the UK!

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I know of a few cases of squatters having moved into empty houses in my area over the last couple of years. In one case, a house further up my street which had been repossessed by a bank and empty for at least 5 years that I know of, I saw the people breaking in one afternoon and told a local policeman about it. He went and knocked on the door and, surprise, surprise, no-one answered. So he just went away and nothing more was ever done about it. The family (yes, gypsies) are still there to this day and have also illegally reconnected the water and electricity supplies.

Until last week, all the cases I know about had involved gypsy families moving into houses that had either been repossessed by banks or abandoned for many years. However, a friend told me recently that a young Spanish family (not gypsies) had broken into a holiday home in her street which is owned by Scandinavian people, the neighbours had contacted the police but, as in the article in this thread, they had said they could do nothing without a judge's order. The owners have been contacted and are supposedly coming over, I don't envy the task that lies ahead of them.

I can only see this problem getting worse in the current economic climate. There are lots of houses near me that are empty for most of the year, one house in my street was a holiday home but no-one has been to stay in it for at least 3 years now. I do understand how difficult it must be for families with no hope of a job or a home of their own, but I can't say it makes me sleep any easier at night and I confess I wouldn't be too happy to go away for a long holiday at present. It will be another nail in the coffin for the property market, who is going to want to buy a holiday home if they can't be reasonably sure that another family isn't going to have moved into it the next time they come over?

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I don't think I've agreed with a simple post in reply to a simple quote so much.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

OK...Twice in one thread..... :nod:

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

CM I do not have an answer to the plight of these people I am not unsympathetic to it, however I do not assume that just because something is in the press it is correct. I refer back to my previous I do not know myself the full or true circumstances. I do though know that although you can sympathise or even possibly depending on your circumstances empathise with their plight you can not condone breaking the law to get what you want be it criminal or civil. To this end I agree with Nigeljay post on this. Point is on the face of it this seems to be people making use of property not fit for habitation? but the property has an owner that wants them out. If this is allowed what next could be peoples holiday homes that are left empty for a couple of months, could be an occupied house empty over the weekend that is why the laws are there. By the way I come from a very poor background up until I was 18 when I joined up but I didn't break the law. Also why do you assume there are no homeless people in the UK I have dealt with plenty in my life, there is even a charity for homeless servicemen who having served their country live on the streets. We obviously differ on our view for me although I can sympathise and in some instances empathise with those that break the law they have still broke the law and have to be dealt with for the sake of the well being of society. How that is done is another matter.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

it seems to be the status quo in the UK,
you need a car to travel for a job interview, a few years ago immigrants were given a grant towards the cost of a car to enable them to attend interviews and travel to the subsequent job they will have obtained
and you need a tv to look at all the jobs available on teletext, also to pickup on the news about companies who have received new contracts and are/may be hiring

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

so what is your solution ?

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

So those looking for work can get a free TV to look for jobs using teletext!

Back on track, if the owner of the properties illegally occupied wants the squatters (regardless of ethic origin) out then out they go. As Spain don't give housing benefit its not the property owners problem where or how the occupiers go and live.

Looking forward to Cman's solution, perhaps it could be a social model adopted by other nations too.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

who said that ? - I know I didnt, although it would appear to be a human right to have a TV

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

If it's any consolation, about a year ago Gypsies moved into an empty apartment block in Fuengirola. They were moved out fairly quickly...about 7 days. As to the legal costs, I wouldn't like to guess:unsure:

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

It's becoming a problem in my area too and I don't know the answer either. I know the cause - poverty.

Unfortunately a house in our street has been empty for ten years due to a divorce settlement conflict between the battling English couple who have gone back in the UK ten years ago. All the neighbours have now seen dubious looking people scouting the house, probably with a view to squatting.

What can you do? We are already plagued with graffiti which started along with the recession four years ago. The banks are repossessing property in town on a daily basis - where do the people turfed out of their homes go? How do they feed their children?

Women are no longer safe walking down the street with their handbags, burglar alarms go off most nights and the sound of barking dogs fill the night air. One of my neighbours, a Spaniard, walks his five dogs every morning - his wife is a nervous type.

Another elderly Spaniard sits on his terrace at night with a rifle on his lap, he says it's for the falcons who kill his racing pigeons but I'm not so sure - the pigeons don't fly about at night. (There's no graffiti on his wall).

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Families cannot be without somewhere to stay. Luckily there are actually very few cases like this in Spain nowadays. Look at the archives from the 60s and 70s and you will see that almost every Spanish city had shacks on the outskirts where people lived who had come from the countryside

However, with all the bank repossessions this problem is going to get worse

I would take blocks of flats from bankrupted property developers (there are 10,000s around) and convert them into social housing. Wouldnt cost too much

Ditto, houses that failed to sell at auction when repossesed

And then I'd convert empty wharehouses on the edge of the towns into giant food banks

That's how big the problem could get in the South of Spain. Fingers crossed that it won't :fingerscrossed:

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

CM, that seems quite logical and quite honestly should in theory work, but would need help from the Govt that has been complicit in these families being made homeless.

Every effort should be made by both Govt, Banks and other interested parties to ensure people stay in their homes. As was proved in the US, it is useless kicking people out and letting the homes to go to rack and ruin. They should be allowed to remain under rental conditions, even a nominal €10 per week or month could keep them in their home without the problems caused of eviction

however, (isnt there always) there is a possibility that the home may be wrecked if they stay, but having converted to a new rental agreement with safeguards could mean prison for wilful damage.

it is far better to keep them where they are than just turn them into homeless nomads.

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I'll all for social housing but not squatting, the UK and Spain should aquire or build more, but if any of my properties had squatters they would have a late night visit and be gone.

" The population of Spain has been increasing gradually throughout the century, but recently there has been a steep decline in the birth rate, with population growth in 1999 at approximately 0.1 per cent. The transformation of Spain from an agricultural to an industrial nation has been reflected in the family structure: traditional extended families have been replaced by a more mobile nuclear unit. The number of single-parent families has risen by ten per cent, and there is a distinct decline in the number of marriages. Divorce is still fairly new to Spain. It wasn’t legalised until 1981, so the divorce statistics are considerably lower than in other European countries.

Public health-care in Spain still lags behind other European Union countries, although it has improved considerably since Franco’s death. The welfare system has still not been implemented evenly across Spain and there is poor distribution of health-care. Resources and expenditure on public health is minimal. Contagious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and leprosy still affect poorer areas of Spain. There is a big discrepancy between facilities in the cities and those available in rural areas.


Homelessness

One of Spain’s biggest social problems is the increasing number of homeless people. There are now an estimated 273,000 living on the streets or in hostels while 15 per cent of housing remains empty. Unemployment and family breakdown are the two main contributory factors to homelessness in Spain. The Government does not allocate enough funds to make adequate provision for the whole population and consequently low-income families suffer first. For them, renting or buying a house is an expensive option. Council houses are not being built at a sufficient rate to combat the problem, and basic social benefits are not enough to cover family expenses.

Most homeless people in Spain are men (with an average age of 42). In Madrid there are many younger drug addicts who sleep rough, and an increasing number of women are among them.

The Church has founded 129 institutions and hostels to offer shelter to the homeless. Day centres also provide washing and cooking facilities. A national homeless day was announced in Spain on 18 January 1998 with the slogan ‘a shelter by right’. Fundraisers and charities aim to give long-term help to the homeless, offering health-care, social development, and help to improve their chances of employment.

Some homeless people manage to support themselves by selling the popular street magazine La Luz de la Farola (Streetlight).
Source Oxfam

http://www.cuhp.org/admin/EditDocStore/ACF5DD3.pdf

http://www.homelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=2995

http://www.theleader.info/article/19...less-in-spain/

Lots of it about in many countries including Spain cman.

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CM I would agree with above if the local authority /government took the properties over but as Bob says that is a different matter to squatting. Only thing is off course where does the local authority get the money? It is ridiculous that Spain as this massive glut of housing but obviously so many people requiring homes. Yet again though that is different to just taking the matter into your own hands. It is worrying when you have a holiday home there that you have worked dammed hard to afford and struggled to pay off over the last few years with this downturn. You like to think it wouldn't happen but you only know when you turn up.

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Should that be "warehouses" or "whorehouses"?

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Whilst not quite homeless, Spain has some of the worst slums in Europe.
http://www.thepolisblog.org/2009/11/slums-in-spain.html
Despite it's regal sounding name, Canada Real Galiana in Madrid is the largest slum in Western Europe with 40,000 people. Even if your Spanish is not brilliant, the pictures tell the sad story, as it says it could be any third world country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ60Fl1oJfY

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There is a sizeable settlement of chabolas on the outskirts of Torre del Mar, just behind the Repsol petrol station on the main road heading towards Malaga, easily visible and seems to grow every year. The Ayuntamiento have been making noises about removing it (and hopefully finding the families who live there alternative accommodation) for the past 15 years but absolutely nothing has been done.

The family who moved into the house in my street came from there. Whilst I don't think it's acceptable for people to have to live in those conditions in the 21st century, the problem is that they appeared to think they could carry on living as though they were still in the chabolas which is not fair on the other neighbours. They dump household rubbish and broken furniture in the street, sit outside the house with groups of friends and relatives all day long, blocking the street so that people (especially visitors and tourists who don't know them) feel intimidated about walking around and through them, play music until late at night, leave beer bottles on neighbours' windowsills and doorsteps, light fires to sit around in the street (one just before Christmas resulted in the fire brigade having to be called as they lit it against the neighbours' wall opposite their house and it set fire to the paint leaving the wall scorched black to a height of about 10 feet). I would have more sympathy for their situation if they made any attempt to co-exist with their neighbours in a civilised way.

The Policia Local are now making more regular patrols and dispersing them, and they do seem to be getting the message about the rubbish thank heavens. But if you were a working class Spanish family, maybe even out of work yourself, and struggling to pay your bills, how would you feel about such people appropriating the house next door and not paying a centimo for their water or electricity? The hard faced so and sos even had an inflatable swimming pool for their kids on the roof terrace last summer and emptied it out into the street (gallons of water running down the street every night) and refilled it - well you can when you don't have to pay for it, can't you?

The idea of taking over empty unsold apartment blocks might seem attractive, but the local social services and police would have their work cut out to avoid them becoming just more chabolas within a very short space of time.

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Good points Lynn. Saw the same about 10 yrs ago in Fuengirola around Dunnes store area. They were eventually moved but I think it was only because of all the construction.