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A deep recession and soaring unemployment in Spain triggered by a housing crash has led to an increase in forced evictions of homeowners unable to pay their mortgage.

Some Spanish gypsy families settled in the area of Puerta de Hierro, near the Palace of Moncloa, in the 1960s and have built brick houses and raised their children and grandchildren there ever since. The settlers are registered with the town hall and have access to public services, but for the past two years have been subject to several evictions under Madrid's town planning board orders, on the grounds that the dwellings are illegal. Members of some families, mostly the eldest, have been relocated to public housing flats in the city, but often their children and grandchildren have been denied the same right to relocation, resulting in many families refusing to go to the rental flats assigned to them because they do not want to leave their children and grandchildren homeless. Out of more than 50 homes that used to stand in the neighborhood, there are only six left now among the debris of those already demolished. (Reuters)

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The rushed move comes after a month of increased attention on the mounting forced evictions in Spain and which culminated with the suicide of a 53-year-old woman who jumped from her balcony as she was being evicted from her family home last Friday. It was the third ‘eviction’ suicide or suicide attempt in Spain in just as many weeks.

One man facing eviction hanged himself at the end of October and the following day another man jumped from his balcony – he survived the fall.

The worsening economic crisis and the record high unemployment rate of 25 percent has only aggravated the foreclosures of family homes and businesses properties when people find themselves unable to pay back their mortgage.

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The Spanish system does not sufficiently protect the consumer against possible abusive clauses in mortgage contracts, because it allows evictions to take place before the debtor can claim damages, Ms Kokott argued. The European Court of Justice is expected to hand down its verdict early next year on a query from a court in Barcelona handling a case on forced eviction.

In Spain, even after being evicted people are liable for repaying large amounts on their mortgage as the value of their property has plunged in the crisis.

The social tragedy has led to an increasingly growing social mobilisation against the forced evictions. Associations such as Stop Desahucios (Stop Evictions) and the Plataforma de los Afectados por la Hipoteca (the Platform for Mortgage Victims) offer advice and human barriers at planned evictions.

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As an end note it is worth mentioning that neither one of the two who committed suicide in the last few weeks would have been likely to be affected by the new moratorium on home evictions. None of them fitted the new conditions needed to benefit from the two-year moratorium on home eviction.

They were victims of the social tragedy that is becoming increasingly profound as the economic crisis prolongs.

This entry was posted on November 16, 2012, 1:57 pm

Helena Spongenberg, journalist from City University in London, currently based in Barcelona. She has worked at the EUobserver and has been writing for the Associated Press, Reuters AlertNet among others. In this blog she looks at Spain in times of crisis.

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