Spain’s evicted fight back

Thousands of people in Spain are suffering from the cruel experience of having the banks repossess their homes and yet are still stuck with repaying the bank for the entire sum borrowed. In this News Plus we’ll meet a man who fought back. He sued the bank and the case went all the way to the European Court of Justice.

First, here’s his story; then we’ll talk to a judge:

There is something special about Mohamed Aziz. The same thing that has happened to many thousands of other people in Spain happened to him. But he is fighting it. He lost his job in 2009, and then the home he had bought near Barcelona six years before with a bank loan of 126,000 euros. In 2011, the savings bank had him evicted because he was four months behind with his payments.

Since then he and his wife and their three children have been living in a subsidised apartment where the rent is 270 euros per month.

Aziz said: “I spoke with my lawyer Dionisio’s father, who has since died. He told his son, and we started looking for a way forward. That’s how we got this far.”

Mohamed refused to give up. Because he put up a fight, the European Court of Justice ruled against the Spanish eviction law. Other judges can now refer to that ruling and pre-empt or suspend other evictions. Lawyer Dionisio Moreno has always been ready to defend the underdog. This time it was like David against Goliath.

Moreno said: “Mohamed came to me with a friend of his to explain his problem, being late paying the bank back. We tried to negotiate an agreement with the bank but they refused and went ahead with the eviction.”

So Moreno took the bank to the trade court with a complaint that it had infringed the abuse clause against his client. The conversation, he tells us, went something like this:

Moreno said: “When we showed up, the banker said: ‘Oh, so you came?’ And I told him: ‘Yes’. And he said: ‘But we’ve already repossessed your client’s house’. And I told him: ‘Well, listen, he has a stuborn lawyer and we’re going to keep on coming.’ ‘But who’s going to pay your fees?’ he asked. And I told him: ‘My father, may he rest in peace, gave me this case, and I’m not going to drop it.'”

In fact, he took the case all the way to the European Court in Luxembourg, which said Spanish law didn’t conform to a 1993 European Directive on consumer protection. The struggle took two and a half years. The ruling came on 13 March.

Moreno said: “At first we couldn’t open the document file sent from the court, giving its decision. But we managed in the end. I skipped straight to the verdict and found we’d won!”

Dionisio and Mohamed have won a first battle, but won’t rest there. They’re holding out for the ultimate victory of getting the repossessed apartment back from the bank.

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