Although a vast majority of people who signed a mortgage during the real estate bubble didn’t know it, in Spain one cannot simply hand over ownership of a home to get out of mortgage debt. Since 2007, when the crisis began, more than 350,000 foreclosures have left hundreds of thousands of families on the street and in debt for life.
But behind the numbers are people, experiences and ideas that were stopped in their tracks: dreams that have turned into the worst kinds of nightmares. These are mortgaged lives: voices and testimonies that give face to the cold numbers and statistics that speak of foreclosures and evictions but fail to speak of the fear of losing everything and being left with nothing, a fear that each family feels when going through this bitter experience.
They tell us nothing of the anguish experienced by people like Jaime, a single father with four children and one grandson, who is burdened by his imminent eviction at the hands of CatalunyaCaixa. They tell us nothing of the uncertainty that Matías feels, when he took out a mortgage to move ahead his small business that eventually went bankrupt during the crisis. Although he will lose his apartment where he has lived his whole life, Caja Madrid will continue to hound him for 200,000 euros. They will not tell us how angry and powerless Lluís felt when going to social services for help and how they threatened to take away custody of his son if he could not provide a home for him after being evicted. The statistics say nothing about the anxiety that Blanca suffered each time the director at a Caixa Penedés branch told her that they would take everything, that she would be left with nothing, that she could never return to work, be on a payroll or retire. Her voice still breaks when recalling it: "At first I didn't speak, I couldn't, I only cried. I ended up going to the bank between midnight and five in the morning to withdraw my payroll. I thought they would take everything from me overnight! I couldn't sleep, thinking they would take the house away from me, without warning."
Data does not speak of the harassment Josep was under when the bank tried to locate him and called him at all hours, at home, at work, even to family members, to pressure him and demand that he pay. Nor do they speak of Isabel, with her house auctioned off, waiting to be notified of her eviction date, and worried about her mother who was listed as a guarantor of the mortgage and who, at 75 years of age, may lose her home as well. Nor do they tell us of the feeling of guilt that paralyzed Santiago, who fell into alcoholism when foreclosure took away his house, nor of the worry of his sister who endorsed the mortgage, expecting that any moment the bank might take away her salary to cover Santiago's mounting debt.
Jamie, Matías, Lluís, Blanca, Josep, Isabel, and Santiago are only some of the faces that hide behind the 212 mortgage foreclosures and the 159 evictions produced each day throughout Spain.
How did we get here? What is the dimension of the problem? Could it have been avoided? To what extent are the people affected by the situation responsible for it? What are the consequences of the foreclosure process? Are politicians responsible? What role the financial institutions play? These are some of the questions that we pose and respond to in the first part of this book which form the thesis that we can already put forward: the inhabitants of this country have been victims of a huge scam.
But more than the common experience of having suffered through a judicial process that denies them a second chance, all of these people share another feature. Far from giving up and complying with the consequences of a mortgage legislative that condemn them for life, they all decided to fight, not only for survival, but also the maintain their dignity. Thus, the transformation of an individual problem into a collective struggle, and the process of organization of those affected and the solidarity to win the right to housing are the backbone of the second part of this book, based on our experience in the Platform of Affected by the Mortgage (PAH).
Finally, in the third part we review the main legal issues and gather some tips and guidelines to act in the different phases of a foreclosure process. We hope that this part is useful not only for those directly affected, but also for local platforms and other collectives who want give support to victims of real estate fraud.
The specific cases of people affected, which are referenced throughout the, are all real, however apart from the name we avoided including personal data because we consider it unnecessary. While we want to explain the importance of the lives that are in play within the mortgage crisis, we do not want to abuse their personal stories. This is what the media usually looks for, what they call “human interest stories”, and almost never give space for the investigation of the structural causes, nor of the collective struggle over the last three years that has made it possible to begin to listen to much of these individual complaints. With this book we want to make our humble contribution to rebalance this partial treatment and often sensationalized reality.
There is a long list of people whose efforts and dedication have made possible the story that this book partially contains. We will not list the names because we would surely leave more than one person unmentioned. But we could not have finished this introduction without showing our immense appreciation for all of those people affected and in solidarity with them who, instead of giving up, collectively organize themselves to confront Goliath. To all of them; to those who advise and accompany when the time comes for reclaiming one's rights in the face of financial and administrative institutions; to those who wake up at six in the morning to stop an eviction, to those who embrace a friend who has had a bad day; to those who have taken the time from their own heavy load to help others; to all of you we want to take this occasion to say that it is an honor and a pleasure to share dreams, actions, and wishes with you. Despite what we are led to believe, we are demonstrating that, if we come together, things can be different.
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