The Truth About Squatting In Lanzarote

Erardo Ferrer of Lanzarote Abogados tackles the issue of squatting.

On September 5, 2025, we recovered a squatted villa in the Los Claveles residential area on Calle España in Playa Blanca – a beautiful villa with a pool and jacuzzi that had been occupied by five families (one in each room) and at least four children.

The recovery was a complete success, or rather, a miracle. This was thanks to many small factors, but mainly due to the rigorous professionalism and courage of the presiding judge of Arrecife’s Investigative Court No. 2; the superb experience and assistance of the Sergeant at Yaiza’s Guardia Civíl station, and, of course, thanks to our experience and exhaustive knowledge of criminal law.

The key to recovering a squatted house almost always lies in the initial moment of the occupation and the first steps taken. A badly prepared denuncia or a poor procedural decision can lead to a property never being recovered or to a significant delay in its recovery.

In this case, the house had initially been occupied by professional squatters, a genuine criminal organization, who then rented the villa to five different families once they had secured possession, earning a monthly profit of almost 3,000 euros. This is how squatting mafias operate in Spain.

The problems of recovering a squatted house lie in the fact that these mafias take advantage of the current Spanish laws on vulnerability, which protects the vulnerable, even when they illegally acquire possession of a home. This same law protects, on one hand, the legal tenant who has fallen ill or lost their job and who, of course, needs special protection, but on the other hand it protects criminals who forcibly occupy the owners’ homes. This is sheer madness and a true perversion of our legal system.

The truth is that currently, on squatting issues, the Spanish government and the Attorney General’s Office are decisively positioning themselves in favour of the criminal and against the legitimate owner, based exclusively on assumptions of vulnerability.

It may be the case that a common criminal, without a legal job, with multiple criminal records, who may be earning a lot of money from illegal activities, can occupy a luxury villa and cannot be evicted because they have no declared income and are declared vulnerable.

The spirit of vulnerability in Spanish law has been perverted, but the worst thing is that the Spanish government and the Attorney General’s Office are aware of this perversion and allow it. They protect and encourage criminal organizations that occupy the homes of respectable citizens with impunity and then rent them to vulnerable families.

It’s clear that none of this was done intentionally by our Attorney General’s Office and our legislators, as the idea was to protect the vulnerable, not the criminal. However, it is clear to me that despite the reality and current awareness of all this, the Spanish Government and the Attorney General’s Office are doing absolutely nothing to prevent it and are therefore fully culpable and responsible for what is happening.

On August 28, 2025, we obtained another ruling against a squatter, a first in Spain. This ruling condemns the squatter not only to return the house, but also to pay €5,100 in lost rental value of the house for the time it was occupied, as well as €2,000 to the owners for moral damages, and a fine of €180.