Balearic back rent is third highest in Spain

The Balearics' back rent debt is the third highest in the country only after Madrid where the average figure accumulated during the first nine months of 2011 is 16'037.2 euros, and Murcia (12'196.4).

According to the Unpaid Rent Dossier published yesterday, across the country as a whole, debts on urban property rents accumulated to the tune of 8'312.9 million euros from January to September this year.

Fernando Sanchez, the Director of the organisation (FIM) publishing the data, pointed out yesterday how much the economic crisis had contributed to the build-up of unpaid rent. In the first nine months of this year alone, the average was already above 7'771 euros - more than the figure for the whole of 2010.

Across the board
All regions of the country registered an increase in the accumulation of unpaid back rents, the BOE, said, but there were some cases where the growth rate from one year to the next had been much higher.

In Andalucia for example, the unpaid rent during the first nine months of this year was 24.7 percent higher than it had been over the same period in 2010; in Valencia it was up by 20.1 percent, Madrid (17.8%), Murcia (16.5%) and Catalonia (15.9%).

The lowest incidence of increased levels of back rent between this year and last were recored in Cantabria (1.8%), La Rioja (1.8%), the Canary Islands (1.8%), Navarre (2.3%) and Melilla (2.6%).

Sanchez said that the level of back rent on town-based properties, whether residential or commercial, “breaks the economic cycle.” Increasing levels of unpaid rent, he explained, result in a drop in consumer confidence which can even be a precursor to raised levels of unemployment.

Sanchez said that changes in legislation to make “express evictions” easier had not had the desired effect as there were insufficient human resources in local courts to enforce them.

It was still therefore necessary to wait a year before an eviction can be completed, Sanchez confirmed.