Spain suspends house evictions for two years

another family living way beyond their means who should never have bought a house.

hardly unlikely that they would have ever been forced to live on the street, they can however afford the "cheap rent" for this 3 bed house yet they could not afford the cheap rent somewhere else in Vigo?!  sounds very dodgy to me.

fair play to the anonymous donor though, private charity is all that is needed.

 You're a tough one moncapitan ! :)  

Why don't we just line up all these "feckless" people at the shooting range and put a bullit in their heads! That way they can pay for their sins and problem solved!! Houses go back to the banks, no need to rent and zero squatters! 

Surely there must be a little heart  in that body of yours! How can you be so thick-skinned to what's going on? It amazes me :)

(Please don't take offense, but I find it hard to understand how you hold such an adamant positon on this issue. You are unyielding :)

There insn't anything dodgy, when banks repossess your house now you can rent it back for a almost symbollic sum until you have a certain amount of income coming in. The price is far lower than an average rental price especially when there are children envolved. It is a price that the bank would not have accepted as a mortgage payment, but is obliged to accept once it have recovered the property due to the new measures introduced by the Government.

 mac75!

when you put it so eloquently, i shall yield Sir!  suggesting someone move from home ownership to renting is akin to lining them up and putting a bullet in their head!

regarding the banks renting back the property,whilst what you say sounds so simple, the Banks now become landlords, what is not addressed is the matter
of the balance sheet's of the Spanish banks which are imploding and require massive bailouts and therefore are again an implicit subsidy on those living in the houses they could not afford.

whilst i may come across as heartless (im not) for not yielding to the principle of self reliance (Waldo would be proud), it is just
that i do not consider that someone moving from home ownership to renting as someone who is in need.

poor these days means that you cannot afford a full subscription to the top sky package, but you can afford an iphone, the latest clothes, 50" flat screen tv and so forth.

i prefer to concentrate my charitable efforts where they are actually needed, such as helping abandoned animals like our local dog or cat sanctuaries or buying gifts at christmas for sick children in the local hospitals etc.  people or animals that are truly suffering... not just moving house.

which brings me to another point, i will be emigrating again shortly (with child), which bank should i go to to ensure that i get the house i want rented back to me at a low rent?  
i also have made no provisions for how i will support myself, please let anonymous know how wreckless i have been so that he or she can make the appropriate transfer to my account.

 Touché! Moncapitan

I'm sure you are not heartless my point isn't that it is a problem  moving from ownership to renting, that's fine, just get on with it, full stop. But for those who can't afford to rent and have no income. I agree if they can afford a flat scren or an iphone and a sky package they are hardly going though "extreme hardship" and are more likely to be the "feckless" characters you mentioned earlier.

One bank would be Banesto for your interest, from what I have heard they aren't putting up too many barriers!!

I also agree that the problem with the banks becoming landlords is not an ideal situation and is certainly not their business. However it has been forced on them so to speak by the Govenment and I would imagine that this is a short term solution until everone works out what on earth they need to do to fix the situation!

 agreed Mac75, and certainly we don't want people to be made homeless, but allowing people to stay in their existing homes and therefore no change in cicumstances is terribly wreckless and immoral. 

and im sure they can afford to pay rent, but of course not for a 3 bed house, but maybe something smaller.

there are many families who would like bigger places but cannot get what they want - but these people are a special case?

i really dispair that those families are even paying taxes to support the other!  how just.

Caritas has just anounced that there are nearly 3,000,000 homeless and living on the street in Spain at the moment.

Go to EOS NEWS BLOG

 Ian, are you sure those statistics are correct?

in 2005, Spain had apparently 19,000 homeless people, and there was 2,5m in the whole of the EU.

so it seems hardly likely that there are now 3million homeless in spain..

also, by what definition are they using homeless?

homeless to most people is living on the streets and im sure that is not the reference used by Caritas

You just beat me to it, moncapitan.  The news item makes no sense.  The fact that there are several hundred living on the streets in various towns, together with hostels (given that there is not a large charitable/voluntary sector in Spain) probably wouldn't add up to 300,000, never mind 3 million... 

Just saw this on the internet:- 

Homelessness in Spain is not postcard picturesque: 273,000 people out of a population of 39.6 million live on the streets, in hostels, or in sub-standard houses; 15 per cent of housing in Spain is empty - the highest rate in Europe.

Yes, and one of the reasons why there are so many empty houses is that the owners don't trust the legal system to help them at all if they have dodgy tenants.  If potential landlords could have more guarantees they would be bound to rent more of these empty houses out, as who would refuse an income instead of receiving nothing?  We know a lot of Spaniards with second homes, cortijos in the countryside, houses in the pueblo, while they live in a flat on the coast etc., but none of them rent them out. 

 what is your source John?

i do not class "sub-standard housing" as being homeless.

by our very nature, we are all trying to improve our lot in life and may live in property that is "sub standard" to our needs but we put up with it until we are able to improve.  the best properties do not just come to people out of the blue except in a socialist utopia akin to Stalin's Soviet Union.

eggcup is right, the government has given tenants too many "rights" that make it far too risky for private individuals to rent their property out, just read some of the horror stories on these forums and you will see for yourself.

the landlord and tenant should have equal rights under the law but now this is not the case and therefore there are less properties to rent.

 According to all the news releases today, yes the figure is nearly 3,000,000 which includes :

people living on the street, squatters, and people in charitable hostels and shanty dwellings.

Yes it seems an unbelievable figure I agree.

Moncapitan said "another family living way beyond their means who should never have bought a house."

Perhaps the question to ask is, why were Banks allowed to continue to actively market unrealistically large loans/easy credit/unsustainable mortgages to unsuspecting consumers, when they had inside knowledge that the financial system and major economies were under grave threat due to deceptive accounting following de-regulation? Might it be that they considered that consumer ignorance of the facts via a highly complex financial system would work in their favour, that turning a blind eye to grossly ineffective internal monitoring (compliance) provided the ideal environment for the Banks to not only financially benefit but for individuals to fraudulently amass vast amounts of money and effectively milk the system, in full knowledge that when the undeniable crash occurred that the banking institutions would be protected by the failsafe of being bailed out?

If so, what does that tell you about the effects of deregulation within the financial industry?  Should we be stressing that independent effective monitoring and regulation is the only way to curtail abuse of this nature? Doesn’t this highlight that self interest and corporate greed if left uncontrolled can bring down economies? Shouldn’t Governments be taking more responsible measures to ensure that consumers are protected from the risks, by not only taking co-ordinated action against those who have acted irresponsibly and fraudulently, but shouldn’t they establish a mechanism (independently monitored sinking funds?) to swiftly claw back monies by all means at their disposal from those who amassed fortunes via fraudulent means, to act as a future disincentive? Surely Governments could establish fast track mechanisms to do this?   

According to Randall Wray,

"Thieves took over the financial system.... nay they took over the whole economy and political system, lock stock and barrel". They didn't just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top, the world has ever seen."  

“They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their homes, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets..... financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centres and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder....and since they have bought the politicians, the policy makers and the courts, no one will stop it. Few will even discuss it, since most university administrations have similarly been bought off....... in many cases, the universities are even headed by corporate leaders and their professors are on Wall Street payrolls..."

It's frightening stuff if Wray's analysis is correct, but the bottom line appears to suggest that all of us are paying the price for this fraud. 

Likewise for corporate tax evasion at a time of great austerity, which has hit the headlines of late, but perhaps that is another topic that many would suggest is morally repugnant…..

Is it time therefore for citizens to responsibly demand some form of financial reparation for these actions (via trustworthy and respected campaign organisations) ?

I watched 'Inside Job' following recommendation on here, it was truly frightening at how the financiers have manipulated and basically cheated everyone, the ordinary guy had no chance against them. I suggest everyone watch it before criticising the little guy who just wanted a home for themselves and family.

 I have read the Caritas item several times - and the headline figure makes no sense at all.   I have pasted it below - maybe someone can explain it?    In danger of seeming harsh (again), I am wondering how many of the actual homeless are non paper immigrants?

And I am thinking something has been lost in translation - but I cannot find the original Spanish article.

NEARLY three million people in Spain sleep on the streets every night because they have no home of their own, or live in homeless shelters, according to research by the charity Cáritas.

In Madrid alone, 600 people live on the pavement, and when combined with those who live in shelters, youth hostels or flitting between cheap guest houses, the total comes to over 3,000.

About another 4,000 people in the north-western region of Galicia are homeless, and a further 500 in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Cáritas has been unable to find details of the number of children who are living on the streets, but they say they are hearing of more and more cases of entire families with no home.

The number of women who have nowhere to live is also rising, with 15 per cent of those attending 'emergency' homeless shelters – where people are offered a free bed for the night for six or seven days – being women in 2011, increasing to 22 per cent this year.

 More figures released :

21% of the Spanish population and of them 2,200,000 children in Spain live below the poverty threshold.

This isn't just a "bad time" for Spain. This is extremely alarming data. 

The figure of 3,000,000 is not just for people living on the pavement, obviously, but for all people without a home/residence. People in shanty towns, squatters, charitable hostals, homeless shelters or on the street. It is spine-chilling that this can happen in a European Country and probably puts into perspective that this isn't just because a load of "irresponsible" people started living beyond their means. There is real problem and this truce with the banks was the first stage in amending a national crisis, eventhough it maybe against pure economics and some people's ethics, the country can't stand aside and see this number increase. This is exactly what I have been trying to portray in my posts, it is a national disaster, where people have nothing more to sell, no income and in many many cases not enough food for their family to get by. Many parents are sacrificing meals and eating just once a day and days when they don't eat at all so their children can. It is terribly sad. But what is the solution? How do you fix this in the short term?

 you do not fix this by averting the rule of law and abdicating property rights.

what is happening is only a pre-cursor to the coming collapse of the welfare state when people will realise that they will have to look after themselves.

there is no children starving or people going without food or shelter in spain involunarily - the social welfare system has been extended beyond the 2 year norm,

 Misleading  headline figures don't help either.   The statement said 'in Madrid alone, 600 people live on the pavement, and when combined with those who live in shelters, youth hostels or flitting between cheap guest houses, the total comes to over 3,000.'      So the 3000 includes all of those in hostels or whatever.   I just think something is missing in translation, and it does not help anyone to have this figure inflated.

despite asking for the source of the original article, it has not been forthcoming.

the latest release i could find from the Caritas website stated on 23.02.2012 that there are 30,000 homeless in Spain which seems a more reasonable figure.

we should also be aware of the agenda of Caritas - it's stated aim is to bring 20million people out of poverty by 2020 and this should be done by increasing spending on welfare programs.

how welfare dependency will relieve poverty is unknown to myself - but common sense would say that creating an environment where jobs can be created and people can be self reliant would be more appropriate.

but i would also argue there is very few people living in poverty in europe - unless you define poverty as having a roof over your head, flat screen tv, a car, food etc...

 Yes, the problem is that the measure of poverty changes, generally rising as the standard of living increases.   But well done for finding that  - I think the the 30000 just acquired an extra 0.  That might seem not important - but it really is!!!