Hi All

Just to show how tenants can manipulate the legal system at the expense of Landlords:

1. Our letting agents let my father's Spanish flat out to a tenant in 2008. They didn't draft a written contract (like they did for previous tenants) and was verbal.
2. Tenant paid rent for over 2 years, including Comunidad
3. Tenants mother (president of block ) found out that the deeds on our flat had not been officially amended. Told her son to stop paying us rent until deeds changed.
4. Our letting agent went out of business.
5. Taken us many years to track down the original agent who sold us the flat (we have a contract of purchase dating back to 1979). He was willing to attend court to prove we were the owners since 1979 and then got the deeds amended to my father's name . This was done in Feb 2016
6. Our lawyer then tried to evict tenant as if there was no written contract - lost that case - our lawyer made a mistake - cost us £4.5k court costs. Tenant was using a 'free-legal aid' lawyer at the time.
7. We then tried to evict the tenant for non-payment of rent - statute of limitations meant we could only go back 5 years - so tenant has got away scot-free not paying 5 years rent (18k euros). Won the case and judge gave a date last year for formal eviction , that the tenant would have to pay 18k up front before lodging any appeal.
8. On the day of eviction, the tenant paid 18k to the court and lodged an appeal (still using a free legal aid lawyer). Huh!!!
9. The date of judgement was yesterday and we were waiting for our lawyer to advise us about the outcome. Now we hear that on that same day, the tenant made a formal complaint about his free-legal aid lawyer asking for a replacement . This meant by law the appeal judges could not deliver a judgement until a new free legal representative has been hired for our tenant.
Therefore ,judgement and possible eviction date delayed yet again (maybe another 6 months - I don't know).
10. Our lawyer is lodging a formal complaint against tenant for 'contempt of court' . Hoping that the court sees sense and will agree that the tenant is 'playing the system' . How can he still be getting free legal aid after paying 18k ?

Now you can see how the law in Spain is terribly biased towards the tenant no matter how dishonest they are. We think the tenant is subletting our flat and making an absolute fortune on the side while also getting free legal aid to use every trick in the book to delay his eviction (probably also going to trash our flat before we finally get rid of this scumbag).

Be warned, letting out your flat in Spain isn't worth all the hassle and pain.