A 78-year-old woman is at risk of being evicted this Wednesday from the house in which she has lived for decades with an old rental contract, after the owner, who is dedicated to renting tourist apartments, has taken her to court. for an initial debt of 88 euros.
This is what the spokesman for the Resistim Gòtic organization Daniel Pardo explained, in the rally organized by this organization to try to prevent the planned eviction, for this Wednesday.
He has indicated that it is an "especially unfair" case because the tenant, Blanca, has an old rental contract and the owner's "only interest" is to "evict her to rent it at a higher price", since according to Resistim Gòtic she is dedicated to seasonal rental, that is, for tourism.
Pardo has explained that the owner played "a trick" on Blanca when she bought the entire property in 2010: "She did some work on the apartment, which was also poorly done, and gave Blanca a bill for 88 euros, but the old woman did not accept it. found out," he said. This debt has increased to 177 euros.
Instead of trying to collect this amount in the first instance, the owner went to court to get an eviction authorized.
"I got married here, I had children here and now this woman wants me to leave because she wants to use it as a tourist apartment," laments the resident of Gòtic before the microphones of El Món to RAC1. "They are all tourist flats," she says.
On the other hand, Blanca Espinosa does not want to leave and has nowhere to go: "I can't go live with the family because my daughter lives in Reus and my son has a very small apartment," the elderly woman assured RAC1. The social workers, she says, are looking at a flat for elderly people.
Dozens of activists have been gathered since early morning in front of the doors of the house, located in the Barri Gòtic in Barcelona, a rally that has also been attended by the leader of the commons in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach.
The judicial committee that has come for the eviction - no security forces have appeared - has been negotiating with municipal mediators to see how to resolve the problem. A forensic doctor has also traveled to evaluate the woman's health.
Also before the microphones of El món a RAC1, pianist James Rhodes explained that he has offered to pay in advance two years of the market value of the apartment "and something else as an incentive." In total, he wanted to pay 20,000 euros so that Blanca could stay in her house. However, the owner has flatly refused.
At the same time, the Resistim el Gòtic assembly has "thanked the gesture" through a publication of X, but they consider that "the solution is not charity or alms from the rich so that the speculators keep collecting".
According to the judicial history, the execution of the eviction was initially scheduled for 2020, but was suspended due to covid.
The following attempts in that year and in 2021 were delayed again due to the lack of a forensic doctor and the woman's request to be considered vulnerable to prevent her leaving the home.
According to the latest order of the court of first instance, from last June, the tenant, however, "is not in a situation of social or economic vulnerability" and in fact "had a housing alternative since 2010", as well as resources economic enough to "stand on its own". The court indicated in its brief that for this reason it could not continue to maintain "the suspension of the launch."
