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Keith001 wrote on Wed Aug 18, 2021 2:14am:
Dear Benson
Firstly I am very sorry to hear the bad news.
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I am very well acquainted with your circumstances as it took our family 4 years to evict our tenant/squatter (and the nightmare is not over yet even after evicting him).
If you hire a lawyer it will cost you about 1500 euros + another 1600 for procurador costs. If the utilities are contracted in your name you are obliged to pay for their electricity and water bills throughout the court procedure (which could take up to 2 years as there is a massive backlog of court cases). The squatter can also prosecute you for coercion if you ask for the energy and water to be cut off.
If I'd known how biased the State and Judicial system were in favour of squatters I would never have gone down the legal route.
1. The squatters probably don't have any savings and will delay court proceedings while they apply for free legal aid (which can take several weeks ). The case cannot progress unless they have a legal representative. Many lawyers are keen to be on this 'legal aid assist list' as its a good source of income in Spain so be prepared for some savvy ones who will know every trick in the legal book to delay matters and add to their hourly rates (all paid for by the State).
2. Every accusation made against the squatter can be appealed against. Even if the judge rejects the appeal , the squatter can appeal against that judgement , and so on and on....... The squatter, if he is really determined, can continue to appeal to a higher court (but he might have to pay his own legal costs for that part). Our tenant squatter attempted to appeal to the 'Supreme Court Of Spain' but failed because of a process error . If he'd got through their 'front door process' we would have had to wait another 5-7 years for them to even look at our eviction case.
3. During the case , a squatter might produce fraudulent documentation to strengthen his case (possibly a fraudulent lease contract ). The courts do not seem to check or question documentation that is presented to the court and it will be up to your own lawyer to object (which could lengthen the court case even further).
4. During the court case , the squatter will sack his lawyer so that he doesn't have a legal representative . He will make all sorts of excuses to warrant the dismissing of his lawyer . This will delay the court proceedings for another 10 working days while the Court requests the Spanish Legal Bar to recruit another on their 'waiting list' . Our tenant sacked his lawyer 4 times during the court case and the judges didn't bat an eyelid.
5. Then nearer the end of the eviction process the squatter will claim 'vulnerability ' due to injury or sickness or other mental ailment . The judge will have no option but to ask the Social Services to intervene and interview the squatter. If they agree that the squatter is vulnerable they have 1 month to provide him with some alternative assistance (ie. maybe temporary accommodation, etc).
6. Once the Judge has ordered the eviction it goes to the SCNE (some court office that arranges for court officials to enact the eviction). We waited 4 months for them to arrange an eviction date.
7. Then be prepared for the SCNE to cancel the eviction at the last moment (for a plethora of reasons that the squatter and his lawyer know how to exploit). Our eviction was cancelled 2 times with a total wait of over 6 months . The 2nd eviction attempt found that our tenant was subletting our property to a young lady and son therefore the SCNE could not evict them. The 3rd eviction had an African man staying in our flat and he wouldn't leave so the SCNE called the Guardia to force him out and legally evict our tenant.
I recommend that you be there when the eviction happens to ensure that once your locksmith changes the lock (it will cost you 100 euros if you are replacing it with a standard cylinder lock) he hands you all the sets of keys. If you are not there and there is the slightest doubt concerning the location of your flat , the SCNE will cancel the eviction. If you are travelling to Spain , you might have many wasted journeys (and expense) if the SCNE evictions are cancelled.
Note that a squatter might leave the property before the eviction date and be replaced by another squatter in which case you may need to start from scratch again on the legal side.
My recommendation if you are going down the legal route is to proceed with the Criminal route rather than the Civil route . It might take 2 years and there is the chance that the squatter could be jailed and have a criminal sentence against his name (but sadly I've also heard stories of judges just handing out a 200-300 euro fine).
Have you contacted the Police ? There is something called 'Alert Cops' which is a mobile application that can be used to inform the local police that squatters have entered your property. It's in English so that might be something you might wish to do and maybe strike lucky and the police might kick them out (but I doubt it). Normally the Police will only visit if the owner or a representative of the owner is at the premises or if a burglar alarm has gone off. My general experience is that Police cannot be bothered and they never reply back to my emails (especially if they are in English).
I can recommend a solicitor if you wish but be prepared that this could cost you many thousands of euros. Our 1st solicitor made a terrible process error in our 1st eviction attempt through the courts and it cost us 4700 euros having to pay the tenants court costs and their free-legal aid lawyer rates (so please be careful about picking the right lawyer). We still haven't paid it because we ran out of money so there is a threat that an embargo will be levied on our flat and it will be auctioned off . The tenant owes us 11k but is claiming he has no assets so unfortunately he gets off scot free . Also if he loses the case and does not earn enough salary to meet some threshold , his free legal aid costs (which he's obliged to pay if he loses the case) gets annulled after 3 years. We have paid 1k lawyer and court costs appealing against the threat of an embargo asking for the 4.7k to be offset against the 11k he owes us (still awaiting the judgement after 8 months but you can bet that the judge will not accept our appeal).
So there you have the legal route which is 'not fit for purpose' and utterly biased towards the squatter.
I have heard that amendments to the squatter eviction law was made on the 15th September where one might evict and prosecute them for 'Trespassing/Burglary' . I'm unsure whether this law is actually being enacted through the Courts but a good lawyer will know.
Here are some links that might help you.
Instructions how to deal with squatters - Terrazas del Rodeo (terrazas-del-rodeo.com)
Squatters in Spain, and how to avoid adverse possession (spanishpropertyinsight.com)
There is however other ways but not entirely legal but are mentioned in you-tube videos (where you 'out-squat ' the squatter).
If it happens to us again we are not planning to pursue the legal route and we may have to hire a negotiating company to get them out (might cost us 500-1000 euros but it will be cheaper).
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Wow, really sorry to read about your nightmare experience.
I was wondering was this person a tenant with a contract or did they just break into your property?
