ARCHIVED - Catalan Government passes law to prevent property evictions during Covid pandemic

The Catalan government is principally concerned about evictions by entities, such as banks rather than single properties owned by small-scale investors

It has now been made official that the state of emergency in Spain which has been declared in response to the second wave of coronavirus infections will last until 9th May 2021, and the regional government of Catalunya has announced that until the emergency is lifted no more property evictions will take place in properties owned by larger entities.

This is to be specified in a regional law which will also state that if an eviction procedure is initiated in a property belonging to a large entity then that eviction will be suspended until a “social rental” property is offered to the tenant.

This decree law, however, will not affect tenants of flats owned by small holders.

The new decree also obliges the local police and the Mossos d'Esquadra to request a prior report from the social services in parallel to receiving precautionary measures on an eviction. In their role as judicial police, the Mossos will be able to request precautionary measures related to housing evictions by requesting an urgent report from the social services and communicating the request to the public prosecutor before carrying out the eviction.

The Generalitat wants to avoid extreme situations experienced by families such as the family that was expelled last Thursday night from the apartment in which they had lived for two years in Ciutat Meridiana, owned by BBVA. They have three children, one of them just three months old. The bank claimed to be unaware that it was a vulnerable family. It was the fourth eviction attempt after not being able to execute the third, planned last March, due to the state of alarm

The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) denounces that in Spain there are still "many evictions" (more than 11,900 so far in 2020 according to calculations by the General Council of the Judiciary). It requires the Government to approve a new decree against evictions because "the current one only covers the rents of large owners and those affected by the Covid." The ERC and the CUP support this demand. This Wednesday there were 15 evictions of vulnerable people planned, involving 29 adults and 15 children, in Barcelona.