The representative of the company that bought the building in the Poble-sec district of Barcelona admitted that the company had signed “an agreement” with the illegal eviction company Stop Okupas Low Cost, denounced by the occupants of the property for real estate harassment.
Two representatives of the company that owns the property, acquired by the company in 2023 at a public auction after the unsuccessful death of the former owner, declared themselves indicted before the 12th Investigative Court of Barcelona this Thursday. The company’s administrator was also due to appear this Thursday, but he was in London.
The company, linked to investors of Russian origin, bought the building knowing that there was a tenant with a current contract as well as other floors of the property occupied by people recognized as vulnerable. The situation is one of the most unusual in the context of housing difficulties in Barcelona: the employees of the Stop Okupas company remain on the first floor of the property, while the occupants are in the rest of the accommodation.
According to judicial sources, one of the lawyers pointed out that the real owner of the company is another citizen of Russian origin and limited his role to that of “legal advisor” of the property. The company is also being investigated as a corporate entity in a case involving coercion, threats and sabotage of basic supplies by the company due to illegal evictions of residents from the property.
The real estate advisor interviewed did not specify the content of the “agreement” signed between the company owning the property and Stop Okupas. The private prosecution of the occupants of the property, led by lawyer Simón Cava, plans to request that this document be incorporated into the file.
For years, a tenant with a valid lease contract and other neighbors who occupied precarious housing lived in the apartments on Magalhaes Street and had vulnerability reports from municipal social services.
According to neighbors’ complaints, the new owners chose to go beyond the law. Without waiting for the evictions that the courts have already granted to the occupants, several acts of real estate harassment have been committed since last January by the company Stop Okupas Low Cost. The only tenant with a valid contract left when the Stop Squatters Low Cost actions began, and today this is the floor where the employees of the illegal eviction company are located.
In total, the Mossos d’Esquadra opened seven proceedings in less than a year for the actions of the illegal eviction company on the property. Before the court, the occupants provided dozens of videos and photographs of “acts of sabotage” on the property of which they accuse the employees of Stop Okupas Low Cost. The traffic jams in the general downspout of the property (accessible only from the floor where Stop Okupas Low Cost employees now live) have occurred since the departure of the previous neighbor. The discharge of fecal water into the courtyard of the property caused bad odors for days.
In the coming days, the judge in charge of the case will decide whether to order, as a precautionary measure, the restoration of the water service to the property, allegedly sabotaged by the actions of the eviction company. The magistrate asked the prosecution to report on the advisability of ordering the restoration of water service to the property, as claimed by the occupants.
