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).

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Should that be "warehouses" or "whorehouses"?

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

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.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

But surely putting them into apartment blocks would concentrate them into the one area, they would be with their friends, relatives etc, and more importantly have a home. It would probably be unusable after a few years but we have a surfeit of labour at the moment, the weather is getting better, if the properties are not available in the right place, build some more.

some people will call them ghettos or slums but that is better than families living in cardboard boxes under the railway arches. I saw enough of that in the late 60's early 70's in London.
the only problem is getting them to pay their way.

back in those days Cape Town closed down Sector 6 and moved all the people from their to a brand new township - called Soweto.
Do we want that on our conscience ??

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Not sure. They moved many to some blocks in Las Alberizas, close to Marbella market. Awful place. Police raided it last week, mainly for drugs but they also found 70 fighting cocks and a makeshift fighting arena in the basement. Perhaps they would be better building blocks for them in deserted areas...preferably with a wall around it:rofl:

Problem is with Las Albarizas is that many have to visit the area. It has a large health centre and of course the market which attracts lots of tourists. Not the place to park your car!

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

but they are in one place, with their friends, living their lives as they want to.
remind you of anyone ??

if it becomes too much of a problem then businesses and others will eventually move away and they won't get all those lousy tourists coming to stare.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

Domino, like you I am a risk management and safety consultant (now that I've retired from full time work anyway) but although we have that in common I can't agree with you that ghetto creation ( for that is what it is) is the solution to anything. You may claim that Brits create expat ghettoes but in general we are not anti social, untidy, criminal or in general behave in a way which makes anyone afraid or resistant to passing through our neighbourhoods.

Re: Is your empty home secure!
 

In principal I agree with Cricketman. It should never be acceptable for a family with children to have nowhere to live and if I had ever been in that situation when my children were small, I would have done whatever it takes to put a roof over their heads.
And all the empty property in Spain on the surface looks like the homeless are having their noses rubbed in it. so I agree that empty apartment blocks should be used for social housing, but can see the difficulties in this approach because the government has no money to invest in bankrupt housing stock and it would take some very creative accounting for them to do so.
Then there are all the smaller properties repossessed for failure to pay mortgages. On the surface again it looks like a good idea to use these for social housing, but I think there would be many objections from local residents.

On the ghettos subject, as a child I spent a few years living on a large council estate in the Midlands. Families were offered accommodation there when their income was too low to pay for a mortgage or private renting. It was also the place the council rehoused problem families. Living there was at times like living in a war zone. Problem families don't become ideal citizens overnight just because they have somewhere to live. I would say the opposite is more likely to apply. There were plenty of law abiding, hard working, tax paying families who lived there, but they were overshadowed by the problem few. My family got out as soon as we could, but over the years the estate became worse rather than better. I would not wish living there on my worst enemy.

So its all well and good for me to say rehouse families wherever you can (in fact find homes for anyone who is homeless) and my conscience tells me this is the right thing to do. But my experience of living alongside problem families tells me that the problem cannot be solved that easily.