Legal rights of a tenant in Spain

Hola Todos, This is the 1st time I write on this site. I need advice. I have just started renting an apartment in Andalucia. I am in the apartment for just 2 weeks now & I feel I am having serious problems & harassment from the Landlord.

Ok, before anyone reacts, I would like to state that I have absolutely never had any kind of problem with a landlord before. I have a very good Job (European Commission) meaning that I always pay on time & I am not prone to having Huge parties in my house. I have a rental agreement of 11 months with the wife of the person whom i feel i am being unfairly harrassed by.

The problem is this, The husband of the person i have the rental agreement with sometimes uses the ground floor for work, this means I have to pass by him everytime i enter the building. In the 2 weeks I am there the husband of the Landlord has hassled me over leaving a light on on the ground floor (Communal Electric Bill which has not been clarifyed). He is also accusing me of damaging a mosaic table on the terraza, infact the table had already pieces of mosaic missing, I actually put the missing pieces back in place, The husband of the Landlord has taken offence to the fact that the dog of my friend P**sed against the outside wall of the house on the main street. I had a bbq for 8 people on my private terrazza, the day after he told me that i should clean up the terraza, I just said ok to keep the peace, but  infact there is no mess at all on MY private Terraza. I feel that this is harassment, he has also cast aspersions about my friends. Some have long hair OMG! Anytime I have friends over he feels authorised to come up & basically check them out & talk to me about something ridiculous. Now he is saying that my friends are throwing cigarette butts on the ground inside the main door. This is plainly not true as there is no Automatic buzzer to let people in & out, so I have to physically go with the people,so I have never seen my friends do this,infact if they did I would have something to say to them about it, when i confronted him about this he couldnt tell me which friend. I Also reminded him that the main door is always open during the day onto a busy street so if there are cigarettes then they could come from anywhere.  

In regards to the dog, ok, i checked the contract & infact it says no animals, so this I accept, but , the rest I dont, I have not created any problems, caused any damage, Now I feel extremely uncomfortable in the house because their is definitely a hostile atmosphere. In the heat of the moment I told the Husband of the person I have the rental agreemnt with that I was not prepared to be constantly hassled & if it continued I would move out & legally cancel the contract. I then realised that infact my contract is not even with him but his wife.

My question is this, Can i be evicted for having a friend over who had a dog ? I stress that the dog caused absolutely no damage at all & was on a leash most of the time. Also, I have an 11 month contract in Spanish so obviously they did not provide me a contract in English. Do I have, should things improve, the right to a contract extension of years ? I have scheduled a meeting with the Landlord & I have asked my Boss (Native Spanish speaker) if he would be there with me for the meeting.

Again, I would like to stress that I have never ever had any kind of problem with a Landlord before & I ALWAYS pay the rent ontime.

thanks

Irishinandalucia

Personally, unless you are getting an unbelievable deal, I would move out asap since it sounds like you'll never be comfortable or happy there. Legally, I will leave those better qualified to answer your questions, but generally speaking, landlord/tennant laws do not favour the landlord - it will be damned dificult for him/her to get you evicted, so if you feel like taking on a battle, don't pay your rent, wreck the joint, have wild drug fuelled parties and see how helpless your friendly landlord is then!

(editted to say: this is not actually my recommendation - like I said, I would just move on to a happier place!)
 

Irishandalucia:

Please have answers below in bold green ( same text as your message below): 

My question is this,

Can i be evicted for having a friend over who had a dog ? It depends on your contract agreement regarding pets and how permanently your friend is staying there. Initially for short visits of your friend with the pet, that is not a reason for eviction, but, again: I need to see the contract.

I stress that the dog caused absolutely no damage at all & was on a leash most of the time. Also, I have an 11 month contract in Spanish so obviously they did not provide me a contract in English. Do I have, should things improve, the right to a contract extension of years ? I need to see the contract again, because a 11 months  ( or even a shorted period one)contract can actually be protected by the rules of extensions if it is a contract for dwelling purposes. 

Irishandalucia:

There is no way they will evict you if a friend came with a dog for one day, they can ask you not to do this again but you can not be evicted as the dog does not live there. In order to get someone evicted for stupid reasons like that it takes them too long and most of the time you have moved out before any eviction proceedings have taken place.

I would move out, when people start like that there will not be a good ending.  I rent apartments myself and i can guarantee you that if there is not a good relationship from the start it is a mess.

I do not allow pets and when my tenant had a friend who came over with a dog i just politely reminded him that pets were not allowed, he apologised and everything was fine, there is no need for arguments.

As for damages, i suppose you have paid a deposit? This is to cover damages, therefore when you leave if anything is broken they can take the money from there, so remind them about that and that will stop the problems with the mosaic table.

As long as your rent and bills are paid and you are not disturbing the peace yous should have no problems.

Tell them that you are happy there as long as they stop hastling you and that no matter what your friends look like if they are not doing anything wrong that it is your life, they can not choose who comes in and out to see you as long as they conduct themselves like normal people which i am sure is the case.

People in Spain are very judgemental, if you have long hair half of the people will not even consider you as a tenant as of course people with long hair must be bad news, if you ask me as long as they can afford the rent and are behaved i really could not care less.

Joan

I am an owner and have a different problem relating to pets. I have just recieved an update of community rules and have noticed that it now states that tenants are not allowed to have pets, meaning only owners are allowed pets. ??

I have an apartment with private garden and terraces and have always allowed pets - i.e one small dog.  I take a damage deposit and ask them to adhere to community rules. Can they discriminate against tennants if the owner permits? Any advice/info would be great as there is a meeting being held in September and I would bring this up.

Irish:

I echo Roberto's advice.  IMO it is not worth the hassle.  Do find an apartment where you are not living in the same house as your landlord (I understand from your post that this is the situation?).

Patricia

no legal advice

but there are some great landlords and some bad ones.

bad ones never improve and if it starts out bad it never improves.

If you hired the apartment before those rules ( prohibitting pets) were agreed by the community or you were noit informed by the owner on that exclusion, you can have your pet with you!