“If someone asks me how 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 Lopez, 45. She is one of thousands of homeowners who have been victims of tenants who stop paying rent, popularly known as concern —which has nothing to do with occupation, that is, with the crimes of usurpation and trespassing—, although the term does not exist legally. Owners who, like López, have had a bad experience do not want to hear or talk 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 people switch to tourist rentals.
In 2024, there has been a four-percentage-point drop in the number of homeowners 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%,” according to a study carried out by Fotocasa.
There are other reasons why owners withdraw their homes from the rental market: because they do not find renting profitable enough due to tax pressure or because maintenance and management can involve a cost and effort that they prefer to avoid, according to Fotocasa.
The price cap, currently only in force in 140 municipalities in Catalonia, also seems to have an impact: “11.2% of owners do not rent out their property in Catalonia again, as 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, the Fundación Alquiler Seguro and the Rey Juan Carlos University.
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 rises. “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 rented flat 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 took over 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 didn’t pay me for a year.” It took her nine months to evict them thanks to a criminal process (they had stolen her identity and had a criminal record). On 6 August, López got her house back and immediately sold it for less than the purchase price. “I’m going to have a capital loss; the difference between the price I bought it for and the amount I sold it for is around 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 for a walk twice a year; I may 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 rent and do not leave their homes, there are shameless people. “This harms the honest person who pays their rent,” believes Martínez.
The Sevillian Daniel Castelo has also suffered for a concernwhich is why she sold her house last June. She did not consider renting again. “My fear is that the same thing would happen to me again, I would not be able to bear it psychologically or financially,” says Castelo, who has three children and who, after four years, has been able to rescue her house in Las Rozas (Madrid). She bought the property in 2006, just before the real estate bubble burst. Shortly afterwards she had to return to her native Écija with a mortgage that she could not afford. “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 18 months for free, he exhausted all possible procedures to delay the eviction as much as possible and sold the keys to another family who lived for a month for free.” A year ago he sold the flat 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, spokesman for this platform, which currently has about 6,000 open cases. “84.6% of those affected end up selling their house because during the judicial processes, 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 the covid, since it has extended until December 31, 2024 the Suspension of evictions and foreclosures for vulnerable households without housing alternatives. “We are requesting a legal modification that allows vulnerable families to be protected, but that also takes into account the situation of the affected owner. We are victims and we are made invisible,” says Bravo. “We must help vulnerable families, but it must be the Administrations that take charge and litigate,” he concludes.
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