The new Housing Law that Congress plans to approve this Thursday does not give carte blanche to the squatters, as some political leaders have declared in recent days, but it lengthens and makes the procedures to kick them out more expensive, as well as the families that stop squatting. pay the rent or the mortgage, so that the average time to recover possession of a home will exceed two years and will be considerably longer for large owners.
According to the legal services of API Catalunya, the average term to evict a squatter was 9.6 months at the end of 2021 – with only 4 months for individuals who have suffered the squatting of a habitual residence, but more than a year when the Property owner is a company. This period, according to the CGPJ data, had doubled since 2018, when it was 4.9 months, but it was extended again in 2022, with the moratorium due to the impact of the war in Ukraine (it suspended evictions and and it has been extended so that it is in force until June 30). The requirements established by the new law will once again increase the terms, about three months for individuals who are small owners but more than eight months for the rest of the owners.
According to Lucía Delgado, spokesperson for the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), a social entity now focused on avoiding evictions of all kinds, "the new law will not substantially change the current situation and vulnerable families will continue to be expelled from their homes . The law will simply lengthen the proceedings.” For the PAH, the law should oblige large landowners to offer a social rent to vulnerable families, either when they default on the rent, the mortgage or if they illegally occupy a property. "This is what the Catalan housing law includes, and this does put an end to evictions."
For the Platform for People Affected by Occupation (PAO), the new law "sinks" those affected by occupations or non-payment of rents. "The raid, the usurpation or the non-payment of rents have multiple causes" and the law gives them all the same treatment. The owners "must face non-payment of rents, utility costs, taxes and legal expenses to recover their property" and the law does not establish any mechanism or help to "reduce this damage until there is a judicial solution."
Carles Sala, spokesman and legal officer of API Catalunya, the entity that brings together colleges and associations of property agents, points out that the new regulation will modify the Civil Procedure Law, which regulates the procedures to recover possession of a living place. Thus "when the new law enters into force, any owner who initiates legal proceedings will have to specify whether the property is the habitual residence of the person who occupies it, and provide a certificate from the Land Registry that proves whether or not it is a great owner. If he does not do so, the lawsuit will not even be admitted for processing ”. Real estate sources point out that in the case of illegal occupation this will be impossible to prove (the owner does not know the identity of the occupants and therefore will not be able to prove whether or not they had a previous residence) so it will be at the discretion of the court to admit or not the demand.
If the owner of the property is an individual, the same sources point out and the property has become the habitual residence of its occupants (because more than 72 hours have passed since they entered it, or because they resided in it and have stopped paying the rent), the law imposes on the judge the obligation to inform them that they can request help from the social services of the community and the City Council, and to also notify the Administrations, ex officio, the existence of this eviction procedure so that they certify if They are vulnerable families. If the administrations consider that they are, the procedure will be suspended for two months, to allow time for the administrations to provide aid or alternative housing. If the owner is a legal company, even if it is not a large owner and has only one property, the suspension procedure will be four months.
Montserrat Junyent, lawyer and president of the Federation of Associations of Real Estate Companies (FADEI), regrets that "the social services of all administrations are collapsed, which is why they positively certify the situation of vulnerability of the occupants without carrying out the rigorous verifications that are would require”, so in practice the vast majority of procedures will suffer this suspension.
In the event that the eviction of the dwelling is finally agreed, the new norm obliges to establish the date and time. "This has always been done in non-payment of rent - recalls Junyent - but it has stopped being done in illegal occupations when there have been previous eviction attempts that have led to public disturbances." This is common when there are concentrations of activists in front of the property, and although the court's envoys may be accompanied by members of the security forces, they often prefer to avoid confrontations and leave the eviction for another day.
Sala points out that the terms to recover possession of the home are now long, but above all variable "depending on the judicial district", so that they are quite tight in the city of Barcelona "and longer in other municipalities: for example We have a case in Sabadell in which they have taken two years before signaling a hearing”.
The difficulties and time limits to recover possession of the home will be greater when the owner is a legal person or a large owner. Currently it is the one who has more than 10 properties for residential use or 1,500 m² of surface, but the new law allows communities to lower this condition to the owners of only 5 homes in areas where the real estate market is stressed. "This reduction will not be immediate, because it is the central administration that will have to declare what those areas are," recalls Sala, so the areas established by Catalan law will not be applied for the moment.
For large owners, the law establishes additional requirements, and mandatory mediation to try to reach an out-of-court agreement, "which will delay the recovery of possession of a home for much more than two years" according to estimates by the Negotiating Agency of the Rent (ANA). According to its general director, José Ramón Zurdo, "legal uncertainty will already be absolute" and "the procedures to evict squatters will be slower, with more procedures and more costs for landlords."
Sala explains that, for the court to admit his claim to recover the property, the large holder "must prove whether or not the occupants of the home are in a situation of economic vulnerability." For this, he must have the consent of the occupant, so that the social services of the administrations can evaluate his economic situation. "If there is no consent from the occupants or the Administration has not issued a vulnerability report, the procedure continues," he adds. The directors of the Negotiating Agency remember, however, that months are passing: the administrations have two months to start the report, but not a period to prepare it "and the owner is left defenseless and at risk of the collapse of social services."
Once the vulnerability of the occupants is certified, when the owner is a large holder, the law establishes that the court will not admit the claim "if the owner does not prove that he has undergone a conciliation or mediation procedure", which must be established public administrations, in which the possible aid and subsidies that both parties can access will be analyzed.
Sala recalls that there are no deadlines here either, but that the mediation requirement may be proven with a responsible statement from the owner, or with a document accrediting the competent services. “We do not know what minimum duration this mediation will have to have. But only from this moment on will the large holder be able to file his claim in court to recover his home: these previous procedures are added to the duration of a procedure that now lasts more than a year and in which there will now be an additional wait four months," says Zurdo.
Lucía Delgado, spokesperson for the PAH, stressed that establishing mandatory mediation prior to the eviction lawsuit “is an option that we like, of course, but that does not oblige large landowners to do anything. It is simply going to lengthen the procedure without providing any solution to the housing needs of the people who live in the property”.
