Alex Trelinski
RESIDENTS in Denia’s Les Marines area say professional squatters are using clever tactics to occupy empty apartments and then extort owners.
The Levante-EMV newspaper reports that organised invaders are taking advantage of the large number of empty holiday properties at this time of the year.
The process firstly involves ‘scouts’ that seek to identify unoccupied homes within apartment blocks.
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They look for indicators of occupation like whether or not owners are putting out the laundry to dry.
Careful monitoring takes place for weeks and once a target is established, they break in and change the front door lock.
A new key is then sold to a ‘final’ squatter who buys it for as much as €3,000.
Residents say the final part of the process then amounts to blackmail.
When the legitimate owner returns, they are hit with a demand for money from the squatter to leave.
With a lengthy court process the only alternative, owners choose to pay up.
Complaints have been made to the Denia Policia Local by homeowners’ associations.
Police advice includes changing the lock to the main entrance of apartment blocks as soon as possible.
That will prevent strangers from sneaking around looking for empty homes as well as cutting thefts and vandalism.
Such is the increase in organised squatting, there has apparently been a boom in property owners buying alarm systems in Les Marines.
This article alternates between “home” and “apartment blocks”. When I think of “home”, I think of a stand-alone unit, unaffiliated with an apartment complex. Did you mean to communicate that the squatters are targeting both?