FORCE MAJEURE

Yeh that sounds plausible

Thank you 

I do a lot of work with contracts all over the world (albeit not accommodation contracts) and I can tell you Force Majeure is written into nearly all contracts, usually to protect the person issuing the contract!

The Lawful definition of force majeure is "unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract"

According to Google Translate Force Majeure is  "Fuerza Mayor" in Spanish (forgive my poor language ability!)

In the case of Covid-19 I believe the FM clause can be executed to allow you to depart from the contractual arrangements in place.

That said, I am NOT a lawyer and I am not a specialist in Spanish laws either. 

I would get some legal advice as you would not want your landlord to counter-claim and you find yourself in a mess

Hope it helps

All contractual terms are subject to the Consumers statutory rights i

I set out below extracts from Spanish Royal Decree regarding consumer contracts in to the Covid19 Emergency 

Article 36. Right to terminate certain contracts without penalty from consumers and users.1. If, as a consequence of the measures adopted during the validity of the state of alarm, the contracts signed by consumers and users, be they for the sale of goods or the provision of services, result in impossible compliance, the consumer and user will have the right to terminate the contract for a period of 14 days from its impossible execution. 

The resolution claim can only be estimated when it is not possible to obtain from the proposal or proposals for revision offered by each of the parties, based on good faith, a solution that restores the reciprocity of interests of the contract. Proposals for revision may include, among others, the offer of substitute vouchers or vouchers for redemption. To these effects,It will be understood that a revision proposal that restores the reciprocity of interests of the contract cannot be obtained when a period of 60 days has elapsed since the request for the contractual resolution by the consumer or user without agreement between the parties on the revision proposal.

2. In the cases in which the fulfillment of the contract is impossible in accordance with the previous section, the entrepreneur will be obliged to return the sums paid by the consumer or user, except for expenses incurred duly itemized and provided to the consumer, in the same way in which the payment was made within a maximum period of 14 days, unless express acceptance of different conditions by the consumer and user.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the organizer, or where appropriate the retailer, must proceed to make a refund to consumers and users in the event that they request the termination of the contract, in accordance with the provisions of section 2 of article 160 of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, 

The organizer or, where appropriate, the retailer, will proceed to make the aforementioned refunds within a period not exceeding 60 days from the date of the termination of the contract or from that in which the service providers had proceeded with their return.

Further more Section 1105 of the Spanish Civil Code, contains a descriptive definition of the concept of Force Majeure or fortuitous event: "Apart from the cases expressly mentioned in the law, and those in which the obligation so declares, no one shall be liable for those events which could not have been foreseen, or which, foreseen, were unavoidable".

In addition, Section 1575 of the Spanish Civil Code states: “Extraordinary fortuitous events shall be deemed to mean: Fire, plague, unusual flooding, locusts, earthquake or other equally unaccustomed events, which the contracting parties should have been unable to foresee reasonably.” According to Article 12 of the current Package Travel Directive (PTD), which was implemented into Spanish Consumer Protection law through Royal Decree Law 23/2018, both organisers and travellers are entitled to terminate the package travel contract before it starts in the event of ‘unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occurring at the place of destination or its immediate vicinity and significantly affecting the performance of the package’.

It is clear that the combination of the PTD and the Covid-19 crisis – is beyond the parties’ control and can therefore be considered an ‘unavoidable and extraordinary circumstance’ – 

Travellers are or should be entitled to a refund of the amount paid for the package within 14 days of cancellation (Article 12.4).  I hope that is helpful although I have used google translate to convert the statutes and make it slightly more legible so the translation may not be perfect which is very dangerous in law.

If it is a holiday let it will come under the latest decree it is not clear from the OP whether it was a holiday let or not but as they live in England I assumed that it was booked for an extended holiday.

My translation may have been off and my knowledge of Spanish law is limited to what I can research on the internet.  Even though I am qualified in another jurisdiction (UK) it is not always straight forward to understand the differences at best any claim would be limited to a partial refund of the unused term