The government wants to extend the anti-eviction moratorium, which has currently paralyzed between 30,000 and 60,000 launches, for another year. The measure, which expires on December 31, was introduced during the pandemic as part of the social shield in the country. Royal Decree … Law 11/2020 to prevent thousands of tenants from losing their homes due to the loss of their jobs or their vulnerable situation. But almost six years later and in a context of economic growth, the Executive and its partners, under pressure from organizations like the Tenants Unioncontinue to advocate for the extension of the rule, leading to despair for thousands of landlords who cannot get their homes back or collect their rent. Given the situation and the legal sudoku that has become the eviction of delinquent tenants, the alternative that many landlords have found is to reach amicable agreements with their tenants, usually for money.
These are by no means isolated cases. The “lobby” of rental owners, Asval, figures that 80% of the apartments recovered by its associates in 2024 were obtained extrajudicially. “That is to say, individuals do not turn to the judicial system to defend their property, but conclude agreements with squatters or try solutions outside of legal institutions, which is worrying,” reports the association, demanding that the Administration finds a solution “so that the owner stops acting as a social shield.”
But despite the fact that the extrajudicial route is presented as more effective for recovering housing, many other owners, if not the majority, continue to go to court to try to evict tenants, even if resolution times regularly extend to more than a year and a half. The new launch procedure imposed by the Housing law has a big impact on these deadlines because of the amount of bureaucracy it requires, “but nothing compared to the delay in the execution of evictions caused by the annual extension of the measure of suspension of eviction proceedings”, he says. Inmaculada Lopezpartner in civil procedure at Maio Legal.
According to the lawyer, with this rule in force, the simple allegation of vulnerability by the tenant allows the automatic opening of the so-called extraordinary incident of suspension of eviction, “which guarantees several months of delay for its resolution, lengthening the eviction procedure regardless of whether ultimately it is clear that the vulnerability exists or not”, explains López.
It is something which, for example, Kathy suffered from her restless squatterwho took three years to evict from her home after opening legal proceedings in 2022 against her. This resident of Castellón rented her second residence, a duplex in Moncófar (Castellón) of 110 square meters, to “an elderly person” in 2019, and according to her story, she stopped paying the monthly payment of 300 euros in May 2020, a few weeks after the anti-eviction moratorium came into force. “At the start of Covid-19, he told me that he could not pay me because it was impossible for him to go to the bank because of health restrictions; She continued to make excuses until October of that year when she told me she had no intention of paying me because she was protected and I wouldn’t get a cent,” she says.
In January 2021, Kathy’s husband – self-employed – fell ill and she the family is facing an extreme situationbecause “only my factory worker’s salary comes into the house, which was then around 1,300 euros”, so she decides to start pressuring her nosy squatter to leave. The first thing she does is cut off her supplies, and that’s when her tenant denounces her for coercion, according to her account, with “false complaints” to the Civil Guard, “saying that she is up to date with the payment and that I am forcing her to leave the apartment because I want to sell it.” According to Kathy, even though the judge ruled in her favor twice, she ended up being ordered to pay a fine in favor of her tenant for non-payment of the water bill.
“My house will no longer return to the rental market”
After that, the owner finally decides to open civil proceedings to evict her curious squatter, “and there begins another labyrinth”, which will last three years, no more, no less. Because it was only in March 2025 – after the owner presented medical reports confirming the poor state of health in which she was due to the situation – that the judge gave a first release date to her tenant, after in April 2024 the court ruled in favor of Kathy so that her tenant pays her what was due to her until then – around 17,000 euros – but that she continues in the house for having accepted her vulnerability.
State in which Kathy found her home after evicting her troublesome squatter
Finally, and after spending 4,000 euros in the entire legal procedure, on November 11, 2025, Kathy got her home back. However, this was not the end of his ordeal. “I found the apartment very destroyed. There were no toilets and the walls were all pitted, what I found were ruins”, which this newspaper was able to verify by accessing the images of the current state of the house (see photo above). From now on, Kathy estimates that she will have to invest between 15,000 and 20,000 euros to rehabilitate her second home, which “will no longer return” to the rental market. “It is said that there are 60 000 households who could be evicted if the moratorium falls, but no one thinks about the owners, who are honest and hardworking people. An investment fund is not harmed by a squatter, but it means ruin for a small owner.
“I rented my completely renovated apartment and they returned it to me in poor condition after two years without paying me”
Kathy’s case is very similar to that of Montse, another owner who says she went through the same ordeal and also “on different occasions“. The last of the procedures he had to face lasted almost two years and after recovering his apartment “which he had almost completely renovated”, he also found it “in poor condition” even “with punches on the walls”. He now says he is recovering what he owes, but not according to the wishes of his former tenant. “Small amounts are seized until my debt is covered,” he says.
Equally complicated method
Neither Kathy nor Montse chose to resort to extrajudicial means because, as Inmaculada López de explains, Maio Legal, “It’s really difficult to negotiate with someone who has stopped paying their rent to try to come to an agreement so that they agree to voluntarily leave their home.” Of course, the lawyer regrets that with the current regulations, the eviction procedure has lost the “speed” that accompanied this process, “initially designed as a summary, special and rapid procedure”.
For the moment, everything seems to indicate that it will stay that way. PSOE, Sumar, Unidas Podemos and other government partners seem happy to extend the moratorium on evictions for another year and thus it could be approved at the last Council of Ministers in 2025, possibly within the framework of a new royal decree on evictions, as happened in previous years. The regulations should anyway go through the Congress and there, the Executive will depend on Togetherwho still does not want to restore relations with the PSOE and threatens to reverse any initiative that the main party of the Executive would bring to the chamber.
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