More than 90 evictions scheduled for this week in Barcelona

BarcelonaDespite the political and social repercussions of the two housing decrees struck down last Friday in the Congress of Deputies, with elections on the horizon and dozens of people camping in city centers across the country such as Madrid and Barcelona, the housing emergency does not stop. This Monday will begin a new week of evictions without the protection for tenants that the decrees provided, which were promoted in a rush due to pressure from citizens and unions following the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, a resident of Madrid nearly 90 years old. She, finally, will be able to return home after reaching an agreement with the investment fund that owns the apartment from which she was expelled, but there are still hundreds of people who continue to have no alternative and who face a possible eviction in the coming days. As ARA has learned, in Barcelona alone, the city where the most evictions are carried out in Catalonia, there are more than 90 scheduled for this week.

These neighbors have an eviction order for this week, but that does not mean they will end up being carried out. Negotiations between the property owners and the tenants' defense usually drag on until the last moment and in some cases can culminate in the suspension of the eviction. Last week, for example, during the brief period when the decrees were in force –until the PP, Vox, and Junts struck them down– at least a dozen evictions were stopped in the Catalan capital. In other cases, they are postponed for later and a new date is set. In fact, there were a hundred evictions planned in Barcelona this week, but a dozen have already been suspended.

Despite the tug-of-war between the parties to avoid a forced eviction, a significant number of them end up being carried out. Last year, more than 2,000 were scheduled, of which more than 1,300 were eventually executed, according to data from the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). Although there has been a significant decrease in evictions since the pandemic – in 2019 more than 2,000 evictions were carried out –, there is great general unrest among the public fueled by the increase in rent prices and the difficulties in accessing an apartment or a house, especially in the most strained areas, such as large cities. Added to this is the fact that the number of evictions has been growing steadily since 2023, after the unexpected truce due to the impact of COVID, which allowed many contracts to be extended.

Without protection

For all these reasons, tenants' unions and the movement in defense of the right to housing claimed the need for the decrees, which have had a very short life. The situation leaves these people pending eviction without protection. The two decrees were published last Wednesday in the Official State Gazette (BOE) and were in force until Friday. With one, the possibility of implementing the so-called indefinite rental contracts lapses: the automatic extensions of contracts are lost, which in some cases would have been accompanied by compensation to tenants –if the law is not complied with–. With the other, a battery of measures disappears, many of which are social, also regarding housing. For example, the moratorium on some evictions of vulnerable families.

The suspension of some evictions of vulnerable families, and also the compensation to certain owners in case the judge stops the eviction, was not an entirely new measure. A similar proposal was implemented during COVID-19 and was in force until December 2025. It was voted on again in January 2026, when it was intended to be extended, but the PP, Vox, and Junts voted against it. Between 2020 and 2025, up to 70,000 evictions of vulnerable families without a residential alternative had been successfully halted. In Catalonia, there were 13,000, according to the latest data from the DESCA Observatory, which has been monitoring the impact since then. During this same period, the CGPJ has accounted for 160,000 evictions that were indeed carried out.