First European to Apply for Protection under the Junta de Andalucia Anti-Eviction Laws
Anne Verschaffel could be the first foreign resident of Spain to benefit from the confiscation of her repossessed home from the lender, pursuant to a populist decree approved by the Junta de Andalucia that considers totally unacceptable that people should risk being socially marginalized by reason of a loan foreclosure.
In the case of Anne, her aristocratic origins were no impediment for Jyske Bank to try to kick her out of her home; but they shouldn’t be either a reason to not qualify for the protection dispensed by legislation that according to many, reeks of communist ideology.
The preamble of this decree touches what seems a very sensitive issue: the situation of social emergency caused by human tragedies where the very right to life has been thwarted as a consequence of the evictions ordered on the habitual residence, obviously meaning the spate of suicides directly attributable to judicial evictions.
According to the norm, property is a key element in the planning of public services and infrastructure and as such, the non-occupation of dwellings presupposes an inefficient functioning of such elements that contravene the social purpose of the ownership of real estate. The measure then states that the most reprehensible form of accumulation of empty properties is that caused by banks and associated real estate companies which, according to the legislators, contravenes none other than the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights!
From a juridical point of view, the norm has some interesting aspects: for example, it establishes expropriations of the property use for a maximum of 3 years but then, it does not provide for what happens after the third year. It also gives the authorities investigative powers to keep track of properties that lie vacant and establishes 2 presumptions of a property being unoccupied: when it is not effectively used for accommodation purposes, during 6 consecutive months of each year, or where there is no water/electricity supply or consumption is existent or very limited.
To effectively achieve this, utilities´ companies are legally made “informants” of the Andalusian Government, in addition to Town Halls who are also required to grass up properties (and their owners) who have no one living in them with an “empadronamiento” (official record of residents in a given locality).
Finally, fines of up to €9,000 are readily available for bank and similar institutions that breach the provision of this norm.