“If someone asks me, how do they know I have been affected, I always advise them to sell the house or burn it down, anything before renting it out,” says Lorena López, 45. She is one of thousands of property owners who have been victims of tenants who stop paying rent, which is popularly known as inquiocupación (inquioccupation) – which has nothing to do with occupation, that is, with the crimes of usurpation and trespassing – although the term does not exist legally. Property owners who, like López, have had a bad experience do not want to hear about renting. Once they get their houses back, after long and costly legal proceedings, they put them up for sale or close them down. Fewer are switching to tourist rentals. In 2024, there has been a four percentage point drop in the number of property owners willing to rent out their second home: from 36% in 2023 to 32% this year. “25% of those who do not put their second home up for rent are afraid that tenants will ruin it, when in 2023 it was 18%; 17% are afraid of non-payment of rent, when last year it was 13%,” is evident from a study carried out by Fotocasa. There are more reasons why owners withdraw their houses from the rental circuit: because they do not find the rental profitable enough due to tax pressure or because maintenance and management can involve a cost and effort that they prefer to avoid, they indicate at Fotocasa. The price cap, currently only in force in 140 municipalities in Catalonia, also seems to have its impact: “11.2% of owners do not put the home up for rent again in Catalonia, since they decide that they or a family member will use it. 2.4% choose to sell it,” according to Sergio Cardona, an analyst at the Rental Observatory, of the Fundación Alquiler Seguro and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. The fact is that the number of owners willing to rent is falling, “a trend that is detrimental to the market, as the supply of available rental housing is reduced,” the real estate portal explains. And if the supply decreases, the price goes up. “Legislative changes and the housing shortage have caused around 220,000 properties to disappear from the market in the last five years,” the Observatory reports. Lorena López, who currently lives in a rental apartment in Madrid, bought a single-family home in the town of Pioz, in the province of Guadalajara, in 2008, with her then partner. After the separation, she was awarded the house and decided to rent it out. “I had rented it out several times with different people and I had never had any problems until these people came along, who went a year without paying me.” It took nine months to evict them thanks to a criminal process (they forged his identity and had a criminal record). On August 6, López got his house back and immediately sold it for less than the purchase price. “I am going to have a property disability; the difference between the price I bought it for and the amount I sold it for is about 60,000 or 70,000 euros.” The tenants of Pilar Martínez, 60, who lives in Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), did not even pay a 350-euro fee. It took her two years to recover the keys to her second home in Torrevieja (Alicante), which she inherited from a relative, after paying a lawyer and a solicitor (she estimates the cost at 2,500 euros). She speaks of anguish, helplessness and sleepless nights. The tenants owed 30,000 euros. She has closed her house and installed an alarm. “As long as there is no legal security, I am not going to rent. I go out twice a year for a walk; “I might end up selling it,” says Martínez. Those affected, who say they do not want to criminalise people in vulnerable situations, complain that among the tenants who stop paying the rent and do not leave the houses there are shameless people. “This harms the honest person who pays their rent,” believes Martínez. Daniel Castelo from Seville has also suffered from occupation, which is why he sold his house last June. He did not consider renting again. “My fear is that the same thing would happen to me again, I would not bear it psychologically or financially,” says Castelo, who has three children and who, after four years, has been able to rescue his house in Las Rozas (Madrid). He bought the property in 2006, just before the real estate bubble burst. Shortly afterwards he had to return to his native Écija with a mortgage that he could not cope with. “I have not made any profit and I can count myself lucky.” In Torremolinos (Málaga) was the home of Óscar, who does not want to give his surname because he says he is afraid. His tenant only paid the first month. “He was declared non-vulnerable, he lived for free for 18 months, he exhausted all possible procedures to delay the eviction as much as possible and sold the keys to another family who lived for free for a month.” A year ago he sold the apartment to a hotel chain in the area and it is offered as a holiday rental. “Better to sell it cheaply to a large owner than to put my family through that nightmare again,” he says.
Regulatory change
There are no official statistics on these cases, unlike what happens with illegal occupation – the Minister of Housing Isabel Rodríguez assured this week that the risk of occupation of a home in Spain is 0.06%. Although it is known that evictions for non-payment of rent increased by 12% in the first three months of 2024, according to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The Platform of People Affected by Occupation speaks of some 80,000 victims. «These owners are not large holders. 95% are small owners who own one or two rented homes,» warns Ricardo Bravo, spokesperson for this platform, which currently has some 6,000 open cases. “84.6% of those affected end up selling their house because during the legal proceedings, which can last four or five years, a large debt is acquired (lawyers, mortgages…) and they need immediate liquidity,” explains Bravo. The platform asks the Government for a change to Royal Decree-Law 11/2020 approved during Covid, since it has extended until December 31, 2024 the suspension of evictions and foreclosures for vulnerable households without alternative housing. “We request a legal modification that allows vulnerable families to be protected, but that also considers the situation of the affected owner. We are victims and we are made invisible,” says Bravo. “Vulnerable families must be helped, but it must be the Administrations that take charge and litigate,” he concludes. Follow all the information on Economy and Business on Facebook and Twitter. Xor in our weekly newsletter