This morning, the roofs of this floor at number 16 on Carrer Giralt el Pellisser woke up cracking. It’s not the first time. Firefighters and police from Barcelona City Council arrive at this property in the Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and la Ribera neighborhood around nine in the morning.
The affected neighbors tell them that the top floor is apparently occupied, that the new owners of the property sent some kind of false occupations to make life miserable for them, so that they all leave at once and assemble a bunch of ‘tourist apartments. The views of this building, which has been somewhat damaged for a long time, are the colorful roofs of the Santa Caterina market. Frictions with the supposed occupations are everyday.
The firemen check that the door of the apparently occupied flat is open, that the floor is flooded and full of empty plastic bottles, that no one is there. “There is evidence that the water leaks have been caused expressly by someone – says the Fire Brigade’s report – they have thrown water through the forging and caused leaks and leaks”.
In addition, the apparently occupied apartment does not have running water. There are also bottles full of urine. “It seems like a clear case of real estate harassment and construction without the relevant permits”, the report underlines in the section on causes. The Fire Department also confirms that the building accumulates four previous actions of the body related to unlicensed works and unrepaired structural damage.
“The other day we put a camera on the landing to have evidence”, add some neighbors of the farm. “The false occupations arrived after the City Council suspended the works that the new owners started.” “One day we received a WhatsApp message from the previous owners saying that they had sold the building and five minutes later the new ones appeared!” They offered us 3,000 euros to leave immediately, they told us that the works would soon begin, that the best thing we could do was leave.” “We are still the tenants of three houses. A woman and an elderly couple left. Other floors were already empty.” “They destroyed us with some brutal works that cannot be done with people living on the property.” “They also made us offers in bad faith, so that we could face each other.” “But we have our life made here”. “We should leave Barcelona. And the boy should change schools”. “My mother is old and if she were to leave…”. “We’ve been in the neighborhood for many years and we have to leave so that tourist apartments can be built there?” “The neighboring farms were emptied, and now only tourists come.” “In the announcements of the works they did on the 14th, the same headlines appear as those of our building”. Municipal sources confirm that the City Council detected illegal tourist activities on the neighboring estates, and also works without permission. “At the moment – they say to the Consistory – sanctioning proceedings and cease-and-desist orders are underway on tourist flats that operate without a licence”.
The sale of 16 Giralt el Pellisser took place at the beginning of April, according to the deeds. The price of 1.6 million euros indicates that it was an opportunity, that the estate was already causing a few problems. In fact, it had not passed the technical inspection of buildings. The purchase was made by two people. The offices of the company that acquired most of the building are a few streets away. They are full of suitcases, with their billing tags. Tourists keep coming in and out with their luggage. On the walls, blackboards with a multitude of addresses. At the moment the administrator is not there, but an employee calls him on the phone. He abruptly replied to La Vanguardia that he had nothing to do with 16 de Giralt el Pellisser, that he was not the owner or anything like that, that he was not interested in continuing this conversation.
After an hour, one of the tenants of the property receives a call from a very friendly person who assures that he represents some investors who have already paid the corresponding deposits to get the property, that they need to talk, that they are ready to negotiate , who are aware that they have had a bad time for many months…
Neighbors wait guardedly for this operation to materialize (or not). “We have been living in hell for ten months.”
