Squatting or the illegal occupation of your house: procedure to recover your house
The year 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has seen an increase in the number of cases of illegal occupation of homes categorized as second residence or specific residences such as summer residences that have not been enjoyed from March to October, at least , on regular basis. Squatters, characterized as people at risk of social exclusion, take over single-family homes and flats in large cities, both in high-end residential neighborhoods and in populated neighborhoods where they find a growing portfolio of «empty» residences. In Grupo Mar de Casas we give you the keys to recover your home due to the illegal occupation of your home, a procedure that begins to be covered by a law with many chiaroscuro and that we address today.
Illegal occupation of houses: What should I do if my house has been occupied?
The recovery of a home from an illegal occupation of homes is, today, a cumbersome process and that, Antiokupas Law in hand (reflected in l to Law 5/2018, of June 11, modifying Law 1/2000, of January 7, of Civil Procedure, in relation to illegal occupation of housing ), it is extended in time if the assailants persist and resist in your home. The first thing you should do is, without hesitation, file the corresponding complaint with the National Police , so that if they have been in the home for less than 48 hours (such as, for example, if you go to work and it is usurped during your working day), they can evict without a court order after the identification of the squatters.The illegal occupation of houses has a clear handicap when squatters change locks since, in this case, we will have to file an eviction lawsuit against the squatters or file a complaint for the usurpation of private property. Thus, squatters cannot inhabit the home permanently and it will be the National Police that must proceed with their identification or when they receive the judicial notification for their identification before high judicial instances in which they will face a trial for usurpation.
Thus, until the moment of the usurpation trial and its subsequent eviction, which can last from 4 months to practically a year, you must arm yourself with patience since civil and / or criminal proceedings will be, in most cases, a requirement indispensable. Do you want to know how to act in these two ways? Keep reading, we explain it to you.
Illegal occupation of homes: legal ways to recover our home from squatters
In the first case, the civil remedy of the illegal occupation of homes is protected by the Penal Code, which establishes in its article 245.2 a «… penalty of a fine of three to six months» to squatters who inhabit the house against the will of the owner of the same, having to report it within 48 hours to the National Police, which can then evict the house at the initiative of the individual.The criminal route to recover our home will lead us to file a complaint with the relevant Court, identifying the squatters and letting the Justice do the rest, usually faster than the civil route, which will also be used to evict, within five days, to tenants who do not pay the rent, after the corresponding Magistrate’s car, in what is known as «express evictions» and that, really, are not as fast as it seems due to the collapse of Justice.
