The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain has increased cases of squatting due to the inability of homeowners to check on their second homes due to the state of alarm. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior itself, illegal occupation has grown by almost 50% in Spain since 2016 and between 2018 and 2019 it increased by 20%, to 14,394 occupations.
Generally, the dwellings that are most prone to these "okupas" are second residences, that is to say, those that are not the owner's usual residence but are perhaps used as a holiday home. This also tends to be the case due to the fact that the legal consequences for squatters are different under these circumstances.
If a squatter enters a dwelling that is not a habitual residence, then they are committing a crime of usurpation of a dwelling (art. 245 of the penal code) and are punished with a "simple" fine of 3 to 6 months. In the case of violence or intimidation, the penalty becomes imprisonment of one to two years, as José Ramón Zurdo, general director of the Rental Negotiation Agency, recalls. However, the expert also underlines that squatters are perfectly aware of this and tend to avoid all kinds of violence.
On the other hand, penalties are greater in the case of squatting in someone's main residence. In these cases, the crime committed is considered trespassing (art. 202 of the criminal code) and is punishable by a prison sentence of 6 months to 2 years, and when there is violence or intimidation the penalty is increased from 1 to 4 years and a fine of 6 to 12 months.
So, if you have a holiday home in Spain and are worred about the possibility of having squatters in your property, what can you do? Zurdo recommends installing an alarm which is connected to a control centre. "It's fundamental because the alarm shows that you haven't abandoned possession of the house and proves when the illegal occupation took place," he says. In his opinion, the key is to know the date of the illegal occupation, since the State Security Forces have the capacity to evict a squatted property during the first 48 hours from the beginning of the ocupation without a court order.
Experts say that, faced with this fast track for eviction, the squatters want to go unnoticed in the first days of the occupation to avoid being reported and that the police can evict them without a judge's order. This is why an alarm that warns the police directly is the most effective measure, because they will go to the squatted house in a matter of hours.
At the very least, an alarm will prevent squatters from taking possession of the house and this means that they cannot get their belongings into the house as easily. According to Johnson Controls, in the past, the main cause of installing an alarm was the fear of theft, while in recent years the concern of customers has focused more on the threat of squatting, affecting mainly second homes," says Jose Gonzalez Osma, director of the Residential Business Unit of Johnson Controls, which has gone from having 40% of its total customers in the residential area to 70% in just three years.