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SPANISH FACE OF THE WEEK

EVICTIONS

I’m staying! Spain’s 104-year-old eviction fighter

At 104, Inocencia Zofío is quite possibly the oldest person in Spain fighting not to be kicked out of her home. Her story has sent shockwaves through Spanish society and proven just how ruthless the country's authorities can be when evicting helpless homeowners and tenants.

I'm staying! Spain's 104-year-old eviction fighter
Inocencia, who's been interviewed by numerous Spanish TV stations, reads out her letter to Spain’s Justice Minister José Luis Garzón. Photo: Twitter

After 70 years living in a flat looking onto Madrid’s charming Royal Palace and gardens, Inocencia has been given her marching orders.

Her story is different from most of Spain’s evictees in that she hasn’t fallen foul of banks’ two-sided mortgage policies nor is she behind on her rent.

Inocencia, born in Madrid in 1910, has been “doomed by the views” from her balcony, as she puts it.

Both she and her daughter have been told by Spain’s Inland Revenue they have to leave their lifetime home for six months while construction work is carried out in their building, but they’re not buying it.

According to the two women, as well as the other elderly residents of the building, it’s all a trick to get them out of the building for good so that Spain’s tax office can convert their homes into luxury flats.

“Surveyors came round to supposedly assess the state of disrepair of the buildings, but all they did was take photos of the views from our balcony,” Inocencia’s daughter Beatriz told local daily El Periódico de Aragón.

Inocencia's flat looks on to Madrid's Royal Palace and the Sabatini Gardens Photo: J Peinado/Flickr

Their problems started when in 2001 the owner of the building passed away without having anybody in her will to inherit the property.

Although it automatically went into the hands of Spain’s Hacienda (Inland Revenue), the building’s long-term residents continued to pay very little in rent, keeping in mind the central location and the fantastic views they enjoy.

Inocencia and her daughter, for example, pay €51 a month for a 170sqm flat, as their home is still judged as a “renta antigua” (old rent) property.

Despite the fortunate circumstances they’ve enjoyed, Inocencia, who’s in the early stages of dementia, now faces imminent eviction and the prospect of a €168,000 fine for not leaving her home when she was told to.

She’s not giving up without a fight however, as an extract from her letter to Spain’s Justice Minister José Luis Garzón proves all too well:

“Dear Minister,

I’m not leaving. I’m not strong enough anymore but I’ll wait until I can look straight into the eye of the guards you send with a decree which may be legally correct but is still inhumane and wicked.”

The response from the Spanish media and the general public as a whole has been one of disgust and anger, possibly having an influence over a decision by Madrid’s Provincial Court on Thursday to push back the date of her eviction to June 1st and rid her of the costly fine.

One battle won, but many more to go for Inocencia before she wins the war.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle she now faces is that of the Boyer degree, a 1985 court ruling which set this year as the deadline for cheap “renta antigua” contracts to no longer be valid.

That would mean that Inocencia’s €51 monthly rent could well, if she does make it back to her home, be put up astronomically by the people she thinks are trying to banish her by any possible means.

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EVICTIONS

Hundreds riot in Berlin against squat evictions

Hundreds of people rioted in central Berlin late Friday to protest evictions from one of the few remaining squats, a symbol of the German capital's free-spirited ideals.

Hundreds riot in Berlin against squat evictions
Masked protesters next to a smashed up bus stop in Berlin. Photo: Odd Andersen/AFP
Berlin mobilised hundreds of law enforcement officials to remove residents of the “Liebig34” site in Friedrichshain, a hip part of former East Berlin where property prices have risen sharply. It went off peacefully.
   
But in the evening, hundreds of masked and black-clad protesters marched in a driving rain from central Mitte shopping district with a banner: “Defend free spaces, remain on the offensive.”
   
Shop windows and cars were set ablaze, police said, adding officers had been pelted with bottles.
   
Fire crackers were also set off in the central streets, with a thick cloud of smoke rising. A bus stop was destroyed.
   
Berlin police said they deployed 1,900 anti-riot officers to contain the violence over the removal earlier of people from the squat, which was rife with symbolism.
   
 
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, blocks of abandoned houses in the east of the capital were taken over by students, young people, artists and activists. Some of the squats were subsequently legalised as housing projects.
   
The self-described “anarchist-queer-feminist” building on the corner of Liebigstrasse, with a facade covered with graffiti and banners, has been offering shelter to about 40 women, trans and intersex people since 1999.
   
A bar and a self-managed cultural centre helped the collective to raise part of the money needed to pay the rent.
   
But investor Gijora Padovicz, who owns the building, decided in 2018 not to renew the lease for Liebig34.
   
Faced with the residents' refusal to leave their homes, he filed a lawsuit, which he won, culminating in Friday's eviction.
   
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Police removed residents one by one from the four-storey building, an emblem of Berlin's fading “poor but sexy” image, the marketing slogan of the city's former mayor Klaus Wowereit.
   
Protesting against the police action, Anna Mai, whistle in hand on the edge of the police cordon, said Liebig34 was “a symbol of the diversity of this city which shouldn't only belong to the rich. Berlin is dying”.
   
“It goes against human rights to throw people out on to the street in the middle of a pandemic, when they cannot pay their rent,” Moritz Heusinger, lawyer for the Liebig34 collective, told AFP. “They are becoming homeless.”
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