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The Real Housing Problem: Evictions, Speculation, and Real Estate Abuse

The housing access crisis is currently one of the main drivers of inequality. In the major cities of the Spanish State, rental prices exceed 60% of an average person’s salary. In addition to this extreme situation, tenants are also subjected to abuses, according to housing rights organizations. These complaints led the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, in 2025, to impose sanctions on large real estate agencies for practices such as charging management fees to tenants, requiring unwanted insurance policies, or including abusive clauses in contracts.

At the same time, the lack of regulation and the relentless pursuit of profitability have, in recent years, led to an increase in real estate harassment practices aimed at forcing tenants to leave their homes without the need for legal proceedings, with the goal of converting buildings into tourist accommodations. Renting a property to tourists can generate up to three times the profit of a regular long-term rental.

Among the reported methods are blocking locks with glue, cutting off water or electricity supplies, refusing to carry out urgent repairs, and intimidation through so-called “desokupación” companies. Real estate harassment operates partly through tenants’ lack of awareness of their rights, which facilitates these abuses and turns forced abandonment into an invisible eviction that does not appear in official statistics.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, timid attempts to facilitate access to housing are not producing the necessary effects, as stable long-term rentals continue to decline while seasonal rentals increase.

In this context, the dominant media discourse presents a distorted view of reality. The major media outlets in the Spanish State, many of them linked to real estate and financial interests, prioritize narratives about squatting over the housing affordability crisis.

Spanish law clearly distinguishes between the crimes of unlawful entry into an occupied home (allanamiento de morada, entering a dwelling where someone habitually resides) and usurpation (usurpación, occupying an empty property). However, the media group both phenomena under the colloquial term “occupation” or “squatting.” This deliberate confusion creates a disproportionate social alarm around a marginal phenomenon that diverts attention away from rising prices, speculation, and housing exclusion.

Judicial figures reinforce this perspective. In 2024, according to the General Council of the Judiciary, 27,564 evictions or expulsions were carried out, most of them because tenants could not afford rent payments. In that same year, there were 511 cases of unlawful entry into occupied homes. Magistrate Joaquim Bosch stated that there is no data supporting public fear regarding the occupation of primary residences. Furthermore, the occupation of empty properties mainly affects assets owned by large holders such as banks and investment funds.

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