"Who is vulnerable? The tenant of a flat like mine who refuses to leave and owes me 5,100 euros for six months of rent, or someone like me, with two children to support, who has to pay a 622 euro mortgage and spend my savings on a temporary rental of 1,400 euros a month?" asks Victoria Iturrieta, a Berango resident who has been fighting to recover her property since October 2024.
This week, she will have to leave the flat she was forced to rent last year in Getxo when she found she could not return to her own property. She believed a year would be "enough time" as she "had the upper hand." "The contract I had with the tenant ended in October 2024, after five years," the minimum term set by law for a lease. "I want people to know, how are people going to rent out their flats if these things happen? I have the law and a court ruling in my favor from the Court of First Instance number 2 of Getxo recognizing that it has ended, but I still have to fend for myself and go wherever I can?" she questions in statements to EL CORREO.
The nightmare began a year and a half ago. "Eight months" before the contract expired, she recounts, she informed the woman living in her house that she had to leave. "First I sent a text message and then a burofax. I thought it was more than enough time for her to find another place," she points out. She received no response. "In July, I sent her a second burofax," she states. The response was not what she expected: "She told me she had no housing alternative and that she lived with two minors."
With the contract expired, in "November," Victoria formally filed the lawsuit. Far from resolving the issue, it became more complicated. The lawsuit took "four months" to reach the tenant. From then on, a new setback occurred, as she stopped paying the rent. And to top it off, she requested that her vulnerability be recognized, even though "she was working," comments the owner.
"It became a mess. Social services signed a report in which they accepted it, even though it stated she was 90 years old, instead of her late forties, and had two minor children, when it wasn't entirely as she said, nobody checked it, and to top it all off, they applied a law aimed at people renting properties from banks. Totally incomprehensible," recounts Victoria.
The judge in charge at the time at the Court of First Instance number 2 of Getxo accepted the report and acknowledged the tenant's vulnerability. "She achieved her goal, buying time, because she forced me to appeal," she laments. Nine months later, with a new judge – in the last two years, the person in charge has changed up to four times – she managed to get the ruling in her favor. In February, the oral hearing was held, and the judge ruled in her favor, as it was proven that there was a "contractual expiration, meaning the five years of the contract had passed and that I had notified her via burofax within the legally stipulated time".
When it seemed she could see the light and the eviction date could be set, the tenant used another avenue that paralyzed the eviction. She resorted to the Second Chance Law, an administrative option by which individuals and the self-employed can cancel their debts, provided they meet certain requirements, and start from scratch. "To appeal the sentence, the law requires being up to date with payments, so she requested to be exempted from all amounts and to be able to continue appealing for free," recalls Victoria. "It's a real disgrace that I have to be paying and appealing when someone is using a legal strategy that seeks to take advantage of everything," she laments. "I don't understand how this is allowed and nothing is done about it," she adds.
The Commercial Court has forgiven her half of the owed rent. "If she has no money and is vulnerable, how did she deposit 5,000 euros in one day?" she wonders. Meanwhile, the months continue to pass. The latest appeal is now before the Provincial Court. It will take "two months" until a decision is made on whether to accept it or not. It could add up to "two more years" if the ruling from Getxo is reviewed. And that's not all. "I've had to pay the Tax Agency over a thousand euros because they consider that I have received the rent, even though that's not the case, I can't deduct my own home because it's rented out, nor the one I was forced to rent because it's a temporary contract," she laments. "Then they complain that flats aren't rented out; how are you going to do it if it can take you four years to get it back?" she laments.
Victoria Iturrieta's situation highlights the difficulties homeowners face in Spain to recover their properties from defaulting tenants, especially when they claim vulnerability and use legal recourse to prolong proceedings.
