Malaga tenants fight for their homes after company buys 23 flats in their building

The tenants living in the building on Avenida de Europa 15 in Malaga are holding a protest on Saturday, 14 March, to defend their housing rights in the face of eviction fears.

The dispute between the residents and the new owner of 23 of the 28 flats in the building started in 2024, when Geslau S.L. bought them. The building dates from the late 1950s and some families have been living there for generations and have no plans of leaving.

Geslau S.L. told SUR that the plan is to renovate the building and return the flats to the market, allowing residents with old rental contracts to stay indefinitely and pay less than 90 euros per month.

There are, however, 17 or 18 households who can lose their homes when their contracts expire. Seven or eight cases are already in court. The landlord sends those tenants whose contracts are close to expiring burofaxes with the date on which they have to leave. All tenants continue paying their rent (around 400 euros per month), as the owner has admitted.

In a conversation with SUR, the owner said that the whole building is in need of renovation, as well as some of the flats. He believes that local authorities should facilitate the rehabilitation of the flats that need it and promote the construction of housing for middle-income households. He also criticices the unused lot directly opposite, the former Repsol site.

The owner said that he empathises with the tenants who have been living there for generations. He has even offered those with the latest contract expiration date 20,000 euros to facilitate their departure. He denies having used intimidation to make them leave.

He also acknowledged that he has been considering the idea of dividing the flats to create more units and contribute to an increase in supply.

The residents, many of them local families or migrants, also shared their experience with SUR. According to their testimony, the owner has only contacted them twice since 2024: when he sent them the letter informing them of the acquisition and the new bank account into which they would have to pay the rent and then when he notified them of their contracts' expiry dates.

The tenants said that they wanted to negotiate and renew their rental contracts at the price they are now paying, which they consider to be reasonable.

"It's 40 or 50 per cent of our salary," 33-year-old Jéssica Muñoz said, while pushing her one-year-old in a pram. She stated that the flats lack grounding, the pipes are still lead and the balconies are in danger of collapsing onto the pavement.

They admit that they accepted the previous landlord's offer not to assume responsibility for the flats' maintenance in exchange for a lower rent. Now, with the new landlord, they are also finding it difficult to get him to take on the maintenance work.

"In this building we live in harmony, we are civilised people, we ask to be able to pay for housing, that we don't have to choose between food and shelter. Housing prices in Malaga are exorbitant," Muñoz said.

"Mentally, we are in a very bad way, because we don't know where we are going to end up. There are many things to invest in, the stock market, cryptocurrencies, but not destroying people's lives. If I had a thousand euros to pay rent, I would leave, but I have no choice but to stay. Nobody here wants to live for free," the young mother stated.

They confirmed that there has been no direct extortion, but they do believe that Geslau has adopted a "strategy of attrition", implying that there is no opportunity for negotiation so that their "hope runs out" and they end up leaving on their own.

The tenants' union has decided to organise a demonstration around this case to highlight the importance of the mobilisation of locals. "At the first sign of danger, all residents must act together," spokesperson Carmela Olmedo said. "This is not an isolated case: a landlord deciding not to renew a rental contract is something that happens throughout the city," she added.

"Although what the landlord is doing isn't illegal, people's lives are at stake. That's why we're waging this social and political war, because it's unjust and violates the right to housing, which must take precedence over market forces. Homes are for living in - that's our motto," Olmedo said.

She also stated that an increasing number of people in Malaga are scared of eviction, which is why they often don't tell landlords about things and appliances breaking in the flat, which the owner should take care of.