Cristina Hodgson
THE homeowners of a luxury villa in Marbella have managed to recover their home, after a two month ordeal, when it was taken over by squatters.
The nightmare for property owners, who live in Sweden, began over two months ago when they were alerted by their neighbours that unknown people were entering and leaving the house, cars parked in the doorway and the house lights on.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the owners of this property, located next to a golf course in the most exclusive area of Nueva Andalucia, had not been able to come to Spain this year to spend their summer holidays.
Taking advantage of this situation, a couple and the two youngest children of one of them, illegally settled in the house.
On receiving the alert that squatters had taken over their holiday home, the owners requested the intervention of the authorities to recover their property, but the authorities could do no more than urge them to file a complaint.
Seeing how the situation could drag on, the property owners turned to a more extreme measure to recover their property and contacted a company specialised in express evictions.
Once authorised by the owners, this company urged the illegal inhabitants of the villa to leave ‘as soon as possible’.
In view of their refusal to leave the villa, the eviction company decided to install access controls at the entrance of the villa to prevent anyone from leaving and re-entering.
Finally, after a few days of ‘mediation’ the company, run by muscled men who work on the edges of the law, achieved what the Spanish justice system takes months to complete, the eviction.
According to reports from Efe, this firm, which has been working in Marbella for a short time, carries out evictions ‘almost every week’.
