Cutting off the electricity and water supply to an occupied apartment is not a crime, according to Barcelona judges.

BarcelonaThe owner of an occupied apartment stops paying the water, electricity, and gas bills. Tenants are left without supplies, and this can be a reason to leave. Some courts have ruled this situation a crime of coercion by the owner of the occupants, but the Barcelona Court of Appeals considers it not a crime, regardless of whether the apartment was empty before the occupation or not.

This includes both cases where the owner is a natural person and those where the property belongs to a legal entity, such as a company, bank, or vulture fund. In fact, the court also includes any "owner of the property," whether they are the owner or have "any other title that authorizes its use."

This is one of the agreements that the judges of the court's criminal sections reached in a meeting last Friday to unify criteria on various aspects related to employment. This Friday, the Superior Court of Justice (TSJC) made public the judges' decisions, which they also shared with all the judges in Barcelona, ​​​​the Public Prosecutor's Office, the bar associations, and the rest of the courts of Catalonia. However, it should be noted that the unification of criteria does not impose an obligation on any judge, and from now on, they will also have to analyze each case to decide.

The Barcelona magistrates' position comes three months after the Girona Court also ruled on the occupations, and also ruled out that cutting off utilities constitutes a crime of coercion. In their case, the magistrates decided on November 22 to give the police the green light to expedite evictions from occupied homes, authorizing express police evictions without judicial authorization within 24 hours.

Furthermore, in January the bar associations of Barcelona, ​​​​Málaga, and Madrid presented a proposal along the same lines, which called for legislative reforms to allow judges to order a precautionary eviction within 48 hours. The magistrates of the Barcelona Court, on the other hand, have not taken a position on express evictions.

Identifying the occupants

Another point included in the Barcelona magistrates' agreement is the need to identify the occupants before filing a complaint, with a paragraph identical to one already included by the Girona Court in November. To open a judicial case, there must be a suspect, but often, when a property owner reports an occupation, they don't know who did it. Judicial sources explain that it is common for judges to close the case to prevent it from expiring while they await the results of the Mossos d'Esquadra investigations to identify the occupants.

Now, however, the magistrates of the Barcelona Court have agreed that cases of minor offenses of squatting (nonviolently occupying a place where no one previously lived) should remain open while the police identify the occupants. Sources from the TSJC (High Court of Justice) indicate that the judges have decided to do so with the intention of streamlining these procedures and taking into account that the people who commit these acts often do so out of necessity and vulnerability. Allowing time to pass, they add, would delay the intervention of the system and the possibility of assistance from social services.

Let the delays not cause the case to expire.

The Barcelona magistrates have also unified criteria on more technical issues, such as the statute of limitations for crimes. In this regard, they have taken a decision to prevent cases from expiring due to the accumulated delays in speedy trialsThe congestion in the courts has reached the point where the waiting time between the trial being scheduled and the date on which there is space on the calendar to hold it could force the statute of limitations on some cases. Therefore, they have agreed that once a trial date is set, the statute of limitations on the crime can no longer expire.

Other aspects specified in the judges' agreement to unify their criteria are that squatting will only be resolved in a fast-track trial when there has been violence, and that crimes of breaking and entering (where someone actually lived) will be tried in criminal courts. These specifications do not entail major changes, but they seek to ensure that judges have a common understanding of issues that until now have been resolved differently.

There are more cases, but the serious ones are in the minority.

The latest published employment data indicated an upswing in job-related complaints. Specifically, according to the Ministry of the Interior's Crime Statistics Portal, rape and home invasion crimes increased by 12% last year in Catalonia, reaching 7,009. This means that Catalonia accounted for 40% of the cases in Spain, where reports increased by 7%, totaling 16,426.

These data, however, do not differentiate between home invasions and home invasions. The former are committed when someone's home is occupied, whether it is their primary or secondary residence, while home invasions are occupations of vacant properties. When the latest data was published, the Ministry of the Interior noted that the most serious cases are in the minority, and that jobs are mostly found in vacant homes.