The Elix Rental Housing investment fund attracts Lavapiés. What was going to be a fast-paced process: buying, vacating, renovating and turning old buildings into tourist decks was on its way to being finalized in the courts, often years after the tenants had grown up in a new home. The fault lies with other people who, as if living in Asterix’s ancient village, fight back against speculative embezzlement together.
After 20 months of struggle against Elix Rental Housing, veterans of Tribulete 7 were able to get Juzgado No. 17 of Madrid to recognize the process of their dispute against the Real Estate Accident Fund. “This is the first time that a fund with these characteristics has been accidentally attributed to tenants,” says Alejandra Jacinto, a lawyer for the tenants union. “An investigation has been opened and four positions within the company responsible have been announced, including one of the founding partners, the architect or the construction manager,” Jacinto explained.
Tribulete veterans have been fighting against Elix Rental Housing since March 2024, when the company purchased the Lavapiés residential complex with 54 properties within it. They informed them all that their leases would not be renewed, and little by little they marched, but one time they said that they had not, that they had a series of acquired rights and that they would continue to pay the rent until the problem was solved, as Nacho, one of the “resistant” old men, who preferred not to give his surname, sums up.
This is how Elix Rental Housing began to torture its existence: construction throughout the day, damaged walls and pipes in common areas, detachments on the roof and gate periodically flooded with water. Everything that should come true, little by little, is gone. “The intention was to get them to leave on their own, and this would make them more profitable, saving the costs and time it would take to expel them through the judicial route,” the lawyer insists.
Last month, I saw people in their 80s getting married, and the month before, another elderly couple who had spent their whole lives living in Tripolit 7 decided they couldn’t stand it any longer. Other people who decided to unite and support themselves and with the help of the Tenants Union.
The buyer who will have to go to court on February 19 is Elix Rental Housing, a real estate fund owned by AltamarCAM Partners, whose president is Claudio Aguirre, cousin of the former resident of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, this family that even ended up in the courts for the illegal sale of a painting by Goya to buy a building with tenants inside who make life impossible.
Tribulete 7, is the most famous case of a speculative scam affecting the entire neighborhood. Before them, the funds bought the buildings of Buenavista 25, Zurita 22, or Argumosa 11, and one after another, they expelled the old ones in order to acquire the entire building.
More than five times a day you wash your car before the rental price rises. According to the latest report by the Regional Federation of Botanical Societies in Madrid, the neighborhood has lost 10,000 people in the past five years, a situation that is changing the entire ecosystem.
“It has been unbearable months. Alex tried to negotiate, but he did not want to do it in a group, but in an individual way,” explains Cristina Gomez, another victim. “Your goal is to divide us,” he insists. The families resisting the building accuse Elix of engaging in what is known as raiding the property. This is a practice that causes physical damage to their homes, but it also causes them to be subjected to unbearable psychological pressure. The Madrid Tenants’ Union insists that “the practice of bullying and harassment by some supposedly better businesses is a common currency on the part of all the funds, which later makes life impossible and they leave even before the contracts are finalized.”
“The judge understood that the evidence we had detailed was sufficient to cite it as investigated,” says Abujada. If demand booms, it could end up sitting at the bottom of the banquillo “The penalty stipulated in the Penal Code in the event of a non-moving accident is arrest, but there is also criminal liability for the company itself that could lead to the dissolution of society.”
In Madrid, rents have risen by 60% in the past ten years compared to salaries, which have risen by only 3%. As the tenants’ union seeks justice and away from investigation, “the fund is cut off at a time that makes life impossible for these old and new tenants. Finally, they live in peace in their home until the investment fund buys this building and decides to replace it with other, more profitable buildings in the future,” says Lucas Vaquero, spokesman for the union. According to those affected, in Madrid by the impossible prices in the house, the major tenants gave them a clear message this week: “If they end the impunity and use the business to intimidate the building and vacate it to speculate with it,” Jacinto said.