Hi

I was wondering if you can give me some advice on a problem we have. We run a small rental business and we rented a property for one of our owners. The tenant was only in the property for 2 months when the community cut off the electric supply. The development was new and apparently the developers had not been receiving payment for the electric supply. We spoke with endesa about setting up an individual contract but we were told we could not do that at the moment due to the oustanding debt and licencing issues. The tenant was very patient but after 2 weeks he could no longer survive without the electric and said he would stay with friends until the matter was resolved. He stopped paying rent as he was not in the property permanently. This was 3 months ago now.

At the end of May the developers installed a generator however this only supplied electric for 6 hours in the evening so he did not move back in.

Last week the owner contacted us to say he had come to Spain and gone into the property (without advising us or the tenant) and believed that the tenant has been living there all this time without electric. The tenant does keep most of his belongings in the property as he is only in a room at the moment. The tenant is adament that he has not been living there and even brought us to where he is staying at the moment. He admits that he does go into the property every few days to get a change of clothes, collect mail etc but said he couldn't possibly live there without electric, hot water, fridge etc. He is desperate to move back in permanently once the problem is resolved.

The problem we have is that the owner now wants the tenant to pay a minimum of 1000 euros for the past 3 months and start paying half of the rental amount each month until the electric returns fully. The tenant says he didn't "live" in the property as it wasnt fit to do so and doesn't see why he should pay any rent for the foreseeable future when the property doesn't have full electric and again he is not staying there full time.

We are caught between the 2 of them and therefore I would really appreciate any advice on this matter. Who is right in this instance? Can the owner charge for a property without electric? How do we prove that the tenant wasn't living there full time?

I thank you in advance.