New Law Attempts to Speed up Eviction of Defaulting Tenants in Spain
State in which our client's apartment was left by a defaulting tenant
Great expectation has been raised now that the new law on rental eviction procedure and a few other bits and pieces has been approved. Because what this new law intends to do is to help boot a defaulting tenant in a matter of days, or so it seems when you read it (it now talks about “days” as opposed to “months”). The reality however is that for all its good intents and purposes it is quite possible that landlords will still have to resort to switching off water and electricity supplies, calling in a couple of Liverpool heavies or hiring a failed guitarist to make nights unbearable by playing “Stairway to Heaven” outside the apartment for hours on end. The reason is that, even if the new law is clearly envisaged to speed up kicking out tenants, the stark reality is that Courts in Spain are so slow that it is difficult to see how switching procedures (to a quicker one) and reducing significantly the time to comply with an eviction notice (fifteen days) can succeed.
According to a report released by a Law Firm in Barcelona (Alboreca Abogados de Vivienda), after reading more than 2,000 Court rulings and interviewing a fraction of those poor landlords, the time to finally get a sentence to “launch” (as Spanish law calls it) your hated tenant averages six months and fourteen days. The problem is that you then need to execute this ruling so that eventually the police can effective throw the bastard out and this will take another three months and sixteen days so you are looking at an average of ten months in all…but then again it takes another eight months and five days to make up you mind to go to Court (getting in touch with lawyers, arranging meetings, paying them extortionate fees…) so after you add up it will almost take two years from when the monthly rental fails to show up on your bank account to when you can visit your “investment” property again. Not to mention of course that you should not expect a bottle of champagne with a with thanks note in the living room but quite the contrary: stolen fixture and fittings, destroyed furniture, missing kitchen utensils, dog crap all over the place and to get even more scatological (and not joking here), walls and curtains smothered in human fecal matter. So who the hell would want to rent with this prospect??
According to this report, 50,5% of defaulters are males and 35,7% females, the rest being companies. By nationalities, 74 out of 100 are Spaniards and the rest Brits, Germans and Romanians, by this order.
This same law firm has privately compiled a database with 6,000 Court rulings where “non-complying” tenants are named (unfortunately not publicly shamed) and so for a modest amount of money (7.50 Euros) one can know if we are dealing with the right guy. Obviously not all bad payers are registered, but if they happened to be registered and to avoid 7.50 Euros we incurred in thousands in losses, one would not be happy at all. This database should be also by checked by a lanlord who has a defaulting tenant, for a tenant which has had two court cases for the same reason can be prosecuted for criminal swindle, as opposed to a regular eviction case.
Fortunately enough, the law of averages says that finding a defaulting tenant is not always going to happen, and so it is quite possible that you will be able to have a beer or two with your tenant at some point during your commercial relationship with him/her because he/she has decided to do what all landlords are praying for, i.e., just pay the rent.
With the new law hopefully the almost twelve months from filing to firing will be reduced to, say, three or four months, we can only hope!
Under the recent changes in rental laws in favour of the landlord does this effect our security change?Our landlord has indicated he wants to sell the apartment, but we have been here 15 months and our contract expired 4 months ago and was not renewed. We have paid a deposit, our rent is paid on time every month and utility bills are up to date. Can he now repossess the apartment for personnel use and is it a breach of our rights to enjoy the peace of the apartment when he texts, emails, calls late at night and is often hostile.
Hello Martin,
In Spain, rental contracts have a minimum duration of 5 years, which means that unless there is a clause in the contract that stipulates that the landlord may need the property for his own use, you are able to extend your contract until that term (provided of course you are paying on time).
On the other hand, a landlord that uses unlawful means to try to expel you from the property should be reported to the police.
Hello Antonio and many many thanks for you help. As a further twist we have just been able to scan our contract into english and found it refers to a completely different property from ours! I know we may appear stupid but we had no understanding of spanish at the time of taking up the tennacy and believed because it was a ‘friend’ we could trust them. There is however no clause that relates to any kind of family provision. I am aware there are many bad tenants but there are many bad landlords too and your advice is very valuable. Is our inaccurate contract still valid?
Hello Martin, this may not be a problem after all, if you have been paying on the property you are currently in, and have receipts for it, and the landlord obviously consented to that situation by not opposing it.
In my opinion therefore this would be classed as a mistake that gets mended with payment for the right property.
There are indeed horrible landlords, no doubt about that!
Hi Antonio i need some help. Last week my electricity was cut by endesa (for the 2nd time in 6 months) through the landlord not paying the bills which he thought he had a direct debit set up. Now this left us with no hot water, no cooker etc. The lanlord agreed for us to stay in a hotel until he had payed the bills and endesa had reconnected the power. The problem is can we take the costs of hotel and eating expenses off the amount we owe for the bills he has yet to produce for us to pay?
We reimburse the landlord for the utility bills once he has provided a copy of the bills.
We have been in our apartment for over 2 years and the original 11 month contract has expired but not renewed.