The Leader Newspaper

News

RENTAL RACISM IN TORREVIEJA?

Print | Send to a friend

Staff Reporter / 2009-06-28 12:10:39

When sold our dream home in Spain, many of us are teased with easy rental income to offset the financial burden of the original purchase and running costs but this concept took a serious twist recently for the usually tranquil urbanisation of Jardin Del Mar, Torrevieja, this week.

In October 2008 a young Spanish family rented a house on Phase VII and for the first few months were to all intents and purposes the ideal ‘tenants’ but the situation quickly changed starting with the non payment of rent for 3 months and damage to the owners property and ultimately the ‘tenants’ giving verbal notice to quit at the end of May 2009.

The ‘tenants’ took a number of their possessions from the property and disappeared from the ‘radar’ but leaving ground floor windows and door grills open and therefore accessible to thieves and the local key holder secured the property and repaired the damaged front door grill in accordance with the terms of the contract.

On Sunday 14th June 2009 the family returned to the property ‘mob handed’ and demanded access to the property and tried to force their way into the house despite assurances that there was no problem and at this point the Guardia Civil were called and to the surprise of all who witnessed the events unfold, threatened to arrest the key holders wife who was recovering from an emergency stomach operation only a few days earlier.

Even more surprisingly when the family entered the property they could be heard smashing items in the house in front of the Guardia Civil Officers who declined to stop them, despite requests from the key holder.

Additionally and surprisingly the Mother of the ‘tenants’ ran down the street with a Spanish flag telling everyone to go back home because they were not wanted in their country.

Unfortunately this was not to be the end of the day’s events because at 9.00pm the same evening the family returned to the scene of the ‘crime’ and racially taunted and verbally abused all the neighbours, attacked and threatened a 9 year old boy with the ‘use’ of a knife and culminated in three of the party assaulting the key holder who until this point had been watching TV inside his own house and who subsequently required hospital treatment.

The Guardia Civil were again called and yet again while they were taking witness statements allowed the family to smash and damage for items inside the property without any attempt to stop them.

Subsequently a ‘denuncia’ and ‘eviction order’ were issued  against the ‘tenants’ BUT during the course of the investigations it appears that the Mother and Father of the ‘tenants’ had committed exactly the same actions in a property only two street’s away in Phase VI in March 2009 leaving a total of €6000 costs in unpaid rent and damage.

The timing of this coincides with the date when the ‘tenants’ stopped paying the rent in the property in Phase VII.

This appears to be a very carefully planned rental ’scam’ with racial overtones because they only rent from ‘Ex-Pat’ owners and their ‘modus operandi’ is to be initially ideal tenants, stop paying, trash the property and leave to an unknown address.

The moral of this story is that if you are an ‘Ex-Pat’ looking to obtain some much needed additional financial income by renting your property be very careful because despite the existence of a ‘rental contract’ in this instance the law is heavily weighted in favour of the ‘tenants’ and the procedure is ‘lengthy’ giving the ‘tenants’ even more time to cause chaos to both the neighbourhood and the property.

As at the time of writing this article the family are known to have moved and rented a house close to the Eroski Centre roundabout on the N332 at Punta Prima so if you have recently rented your property in this area to such a family you may well be in for trouble in the not too distant future.

Tags: Property Rentals, Scam