The growing number of inquiokupas -tenants who stop paying, but refuse to leave the house they had for rent- is leading many owners to a limit situation, both psychologically and economically. It is the case of Mara self-employed woman from Barcelona who this Friday has been forced to go out to ask for money on the streets of San Sadurní de Noya to face the ruin to which his inquiokupa is leading him.
With two accounts in red numbers, one with an overdraft of 300 euros and another with more than 10,000 due to the credits she has had to resort to, Mar can no longer take it. “I’m separated and I have a 10 year old girl who has had to give up extracurriculars and everything. The poor thing no longer asks me for anything, only school things. And sometimes I can’t even get to that,” she says, her voice cracking. The other day They sent him to buy a compass and I had to write to the teacher to tell him that I couldn’t take him until Monday because we didn’t have any money. There is no right for a girl to live like this and have to eat chicken every day because this man really wants it.”
Real estate and non-payment insurance
The story goes back to late 2018. After moving to Huesca, Mar decided to rent his apartment in the aforementioned town in order to be able to pay his mortgage and the rent for his new home. A real estate agency would be in charge of looking for the perfect tenant: someone with financial solvency with whom she would not even have to have contact. They themselves would bill him for her rent and pass her rent on to him every three months. They even convinced her to pay for insurance that, theoretically, she would face a possible default.
Self-employed and a separated mother without any pension, Mar needed some stability, so she was convinced that this was the best option. The real estate agent rented the flat to a man who took care of an old lady and whose salary, added to this woman’s pension, far exceeded the income of 550 euros per month that she would have to face.
Victim of the pandemic
“Being autonomous and not receiving any pension for my daughter, I have always lived up to date, with just enough. When I needed something, I asked for a loan and I was getting ahead, but when the pandemic arrived, everything got more complicated,” she recalls with a lump in the throat With the start of the state of alarm, she was forced to close the small clothing and accessories store which he runs in Huesca, so his only income became the rent of his apartment in San Sadurní de Noya. The problem is that then his tenant stopped paying.
“Everything was covered up. To begin with, what this gentleman had sent the lady to a residencebut it is that when he stopped paying the rent, the real estate agent neither informed me nor filed a complaint, but told him to go to social services to ask for help, so, since I received every three months, when I found out, I hadn’t paid for a while,” explains Mar, equally outraged with her squat, with the real estate company and with the insurance company. “They tell you that, in case of non-payment, they take care of it, but the reality is that, if you read the fine print, they don’t even cover you for a year,” he warns.
The “cockiness” of his inquiokupa
As the complaint was filed late, officially it has not entered not a single euro since November 2020. Just two months ago, the judge set a first eviction date that, however, was stopped at the last moment. His tenant claims to live in a vulnerable situation and, according to Mar, has registered a 21-year-old daughter in the house who, when she signed the contract, did not live with him and who works in B in order to delay the eviction. “I have told him that my 50-year-old sister, who is disabled and only receives a pension, has shared a flat until recently in Igualada and that she can pay more than enough for that with the 750 euros she earns a month… And do you know what he told me? Why is he going to share a flat if he can live for free,” she denounces indignantly.
In fact, according to Mar, the “cockiness” of his inquiokupa it is not only affecting her, but also her own parents, who live very close to him and even avoid going out on the street so as not to have to meet him. “They are going for 80 years and they are suffering a lot with all this, because they see that he has no intention of leaving or paying and I am literally ruined,” he explains to Free market-. One day my mother, who just had cancer, passed him in the street and said: ‘Ma’am, what’s wrong? What do you need a couple of cartons of milk for her daughter? Don’t worry, I’ll buy them from you, but no one is going to take me out of here.”
trapped by the credits
Between her squat and the pandemic, Mar claims to have gotten into a dead end: credits and microcredits that she can hardly afford. “I ask people to pay me in cash so I can eat, my friends pay me the rent for my flat and, when I get the money together, I pay them back, but I can’t go on like this. Now, for example, I would have to request another credit to be able to fill the store, because I practically no longer have stock. I have four pieces of shit that I am selling to four friends who They buy me out of pity and for giving me a hand“, the Mint.
Given this situation, Mar is only waiting for her inquiokupa to leave once and for all to sell her apartment. She is even willing to give up everything she owes him, “more than 10,000 euros”, according to her calculations. I already give it up for lost, but I need to sell it so I can pay all my debts and start from scratch. It’s the only thing I have after 20 years paying the mortgage, but I really can’t take it anymore”, he laments. And he can’t even physically, since this is exacerbating his Crohn’s disease that he has suffered for years, nor financially. In fact, his main fear is that there will come a time when he cannot afford the mortgage. “If they repossess it, I’ll be left without a flat and with a lot of debts, and then yes, I’ll throw myself off the balcony.”
The rejection of the separatists
Some residents of San Sadurní de Noya have shown their support, although very few have dared to do so publicly. The majority he does not forget that years ago he “emigrated” to Huesca, which for many Catalans is synonymous with being with those who deny their independence claims. “I met a friend of my father and he acted as if nothing had happened. Then he sent me a message to tell me that he was very sorry, but that he did not want to position himself in public. It is amazing that politics is also involved in this,” he laments .
At least, his walk around the town asking for alms has served so that, after more than a year and a half asking for help, the mayor of the municipality (ERC) You have received it in your office. He does not know if the conversation will be of any use, but the truth is that, fearing that his story will become a media case, the alderman has promised to speak with the court to try to help speed up eviction procedures.
Until now, the only thing that had been suggested to him was that, if he gave up on kicking out his squat, maybe they could pay him 200 euros per month, less than half of the rent that his father had to pay him and a “derisory” amount compared to the debts that he has been accumulating. “What they want is for my home to become social housing“Denounces Mar, who regrets that in Spain in general, and in Catalonia in particular, the rights of squatters are cared for more than those of those who, like her, have spent their entire lives working and religiously paying their bills. ” Only those of us who go through something like this know how terrible this situation is -he regrets-, but come on, I always say the same thing to those who defend squatters: if you see it as easy, take it home.”
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