25/04/2013 00:00
TW
0

Palma.—The European Court of Justice has told Spain that the proposed law the Bulletin reported on yesterday would merely put a band aid on the plight of people whose homes are being repossessed, and would not guarantee protection for most families facing eviction, activists complain.

And, the news came the day after the anti-eviction movement in Palma mounted a protest outside the headquarters of the ruling Partido Popular in Palma, but on the same day that the Majorcan Catholic charity Caritas revealed some alarming news.

Last year, the charity, which is finding in hard to raise funds because of the recession, handed 140'000 euros over to homeowners who were struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments or pay their utility bills. That is the equivalent to a 36 percent increase in comparison to 2001 and already this year, applications for help in meeting mortgage payments has risen by 22 percent.

Sources for Caritas said that the eviction crisis is having a detrimental effect on society, they have noticed that it is causing widespread depression, emotional problems and post traumatic stress in those who are either facing or have been evicted.

Hundreds of thousands of families have been evicted since 2008 in crisis-stricken Spain, which has the highest unemployment rate in the EU – 26 percent.

Under Spanish law, people must continue to pay off their mortgages, complete with interest and late fees, even after they have been evicted and their home – whose value is appraised by the bank itself – has been repossessed.

Several people who lost their homes or were on the verge of losing them have committed suicide in recent months, and the protest movement against evictions has ballooned.

The bill that has now gone to the Senate allows courts to suspend eviction for two years in certain cases where unfair mortgage terms have been identified, and sets a limit on late charges. But it failed to respond to the main demand of the Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH), a movement that collected 1.5 million signatures to demand all defaulters be allowed to hand over the keys and walk away from outstanding mortgage payments.