Seven graphs to grasp squatting and evictions in Spain | Housing | Economy | EUROtoday

The Government suffered a brand new defeat in Congress this Thursday when making an attempt to hold out for the second time the social defend that declined with the omnibus decree. With the introduced votes towards PP, Vox and Junts – the identical three events that rejected the primary proposal – the measures on housing haven’t gone forward, because the Executive divided the earlier decree legislation into a number of regulatory packages and grouped them into one in every of them.

Among the measures, the extension of the anti-eviction moratorium for tenants in weak conditions stands out, because the one which has precipitated probably the most political stir. The extension was conceived for one 12 months, till December 31, 2026, and it’s a safeguard that has been energetic because the pandemic, though it has been barely modified in successive extensions. In reality, the final textual content introduced additionally included a change: landlords who personal one or two remaining properties have been excluded from the duty to simply accept the moratorium. That is, they may evict tenants who don’t pay their lease although they’re in a precarious state of affairs, leaving the duty of discovering a housing answer for the tenants within the palms of social providers. The modification was a declare by the PNV to ensure its approval, but it surely didn’t serve to draw Junts.

Moncloa has defended from the start that the moratorium was important to supply an answer to 1000’s of residents who shouldn’t have the means to pay their lease because of unexpected circumstances. And he rejects the discourse, unfold by a very good a part of the political proper, that classifies tenants who don’t pay the lease and proceed residing within the residence as inquiokupas. But what number of occupations are there in Spain? How many evictions? And what number of are weak tenants? The following information x-rays the present state of affairs of those phenomena that have an effect on housing in Spain.

Evictions in 2024, a rebound removed from maximums

Qualifying and quantifying the variety of weak households that can’t pay their lease just isn’t simple. The Living Conditions Survey The INE presents some outcomes that enable us to strategy this idea: it defines the poverty danger threshold when the earnings of an individual or family doesn’t attain 60% of the median earnings (which isn’t the typical earnings, however fairly the one which marks the division between the teams with probably the most and the least earnings). Applying this criterion to the inhabitants that lives in lease, the outcomes have been related lately: three out of each ten persons are liable to poverty.

This delicate monetary state of affairs of many tenants, who face a market through which costs have nearly doubled within the final decade, is mirrored within the variety of evictions, which have grown in latest occasions. In 2024 (the information for 2025 just isn’t but identified) 27,564 have been carried out, 3.4% greater than in 2023, based on the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The determine, nonetheless, is way under the greater than 60,000 that have been executed yearly within the years following the Great Recession.

But the context then was very totally different. When disaggregating the information, it’s noticed that at present nearly all of evictions, 74.5%, are because of non-payment of lease, whereas one other 18.4% are because of mortgage foreclosures. Evictions because of non-payment of lease, a mirrored image of the difficulties of tenants, have been rising their proportion of the whole 12 months after 12 months within the final decade: in 2014 they represented 53% of all evictions.

According to information managed by organizations such because the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), the Tenants’ Union and even Amnesty International – and shared by the Government – the rejection of the brand new moratorium impacts 60,000 households from weak properties.

As there is no such thing as a up to date database on rental properties in Spain – probably the most approximate common estimate is obtainable by the INE and quantifies them at near 4 million – it’s unimaginable to find out what number of of them these weak households reside in. Nor can it’s identified whether or not the homeowners of their residences belong to the group of holders with one or two properties. But as soon as the decree expires, that element is unimportant as a result of the moratorium will not apply in all instances.

Squatting: trespass and usurpation

Illegal squatting is normally measured with information from the Ministry of the Interior, the State Attorney General’s Office and the INE. Although all of them are associated to one another, no desk presents, as is the case with different housing statistics, a 100% up to date end result, which prevents a exact prognosis. In addition, the authorized adjustments within the Citizen Security Law might have altered the statistics, since, years after its launch, it started to compute different kinds of crimes and sanctions.

The finest information to measure the phenomenon are the information identified to the Ministry of the Interior, that’s, the complaints registered by the nationwide police and regional safety forces. It should be taken under consideration that the Penal Code doesn’t converse of squatting as such, however fairly equates it to usurpation (the entry into an uninhabited property, usually with out violence, and towards the desire of the proprietor, who doesn’t reside there). Burglary, then again, is legally outlined in one other means, and happens when an individual enters or stays in an inhabited residence with out permission. In this case it’s thought-about a critical crime, and at any time when the proprietor proves that it’s his residence, the episode should be resolved with an eviction inside 24 hours.

Between the years 2023 and 2024, the final 12 months with obtainable information, the identified acts of raids and usurpations grew in Spain by 7.4%, rising from 15,289 to 16,426. This is the primary improve in three years, and the very best percentage-wise since 2021, when it was 16.8%.

To perceive the extent of the phenomenon, it should be included within the Spanish prison context. The prison offenses recorded by the Ministry of the Interior in 2024 have been greater than 2.4 million: usurpations and raids account for lower than 0.7% of the information identified to the safety forces.

Interior information additionally specify the variety of individuals detained and investigated for crimes associated to squatting. In 2020, the statistical sequence started to compute information from Catalonia, which significantly multiplied the whole quantity, and since then lately the determine has oscillated round 10,000 arrests. In 2024, this barrier was overcome to achieve 11,133 topics concerned, the very best quantity in additional than a decade.

Regarding the depend of individuals affected by the sort of crimes, the ultimate quantity has additionally been rising over time, reaching the most recent depend of seven,756 victims. Both within the metric on arrests and on this one, the outcomes must do with the individuals concerned, which doesn’t enable us to know with these variables the precise variety of episodes through which every of them have been concerned.

Convicted for squatters

The INE, for its half, presents outcomes by classes based on the convictions through which the complaints filed have resulted (these counted by the Interior). Its newest information can also be from 2024. Regarding encroachments, its quantity went from 2,874 to three,301, 14.85% extra; a proportion, nonetheless, decrease than these recorded concerning raids (+26.6%), which elevated from 218 to 276. This final document can also be the very best within the final six years, since 2018, when the determine was 285.

José García Montalvo, professor of Economics on the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, ​​explains that behind an obvious stabilization within the variety of criminals is a enterprise mannequin. “They do not seek occupy properties to stay in them, but rather they enter and ask the owners for money to abandon them,” he comments. The expert also clarifies that in this group of offenders there is “a lot of turnover,” and that the litany into which most of the launch processes tend to become – as evictions are technically known – works in their favor, which causes many owners to prefer to pay to recover their homes.

Greater impact in Catalonia

Official metrics show that the phenomenon of illegal squatting, beyond reproducing itself in different areas of the country, impacts some territories more than others. The province of Barcelona, ​​for example, concentrates a third of the known events in 2024, with 5,077, far ahead of Madrid (1,451) and Girona (940). However, taking the rate per 100,000 inhabitants as a reference, Girona heads the list (114.5) followed by Tarragona (91.1) and Barcelona (86.4). These results show that the greatest tension regarding the problem of squatting is concentrated in the northeastern area of ​​the country, and in urban centers with a higher population density.

The ‘concern’

For some time now, associated with the problem of illegal squatting, but as if it were an alternative branch, the concept of concernwhich refers to those people who stop paying the rent after signing the entry contract, and who refuse to leave the property, alleging a situation of vulnerability. However, at a statistical level, there is no table that accounts for this phenomenon (highlighted by right-wing parties as one of the main problems of the moment), which is mixed in the tables with the results referring to squatting.

One way to try to approach this situation with data is to review the number of estimated rulings—totally or partially—that have resulted from complaints by the landlord against the tenant for non-payment of rent or deposit. The CGPJ follows this series, and shows that the number maintains a downward path: from 14,514 in 2021 to 13,503 in 2022, 10,805 in 2023 and 10,154 in 2024. As for 2025, there is only data for the first three quarters, 7,630, slightly more than the 7,560 that occurred in the same period of the previous year.

“This phenomenon is being talked about as something current, and the truth is that it has been happening for many years,” Montalvo emphasizes. In his expertise, the phenomenon of renting a house and stopping paying the month-to-month cost shortly after has been a power drawback that “has always been very difficult to solve” for homeowners. In reality, “even if no squatting had ever occurred, it is enough for the owner to feel the fear that what could happen to him for him to decide to get out of the rental market,” he displays.