A mother and her two disabled children are evicted in Portocristo

This Friday at midday, the Stop Evictions platform in Mallorca attempted to prevent a woman and her two disabled children from being forced out of a ground-floor apartment on Sureda Street in Portocristo. According to sources from the group, the apartment they lived in had been reported by a neighbor who argued that it was a commercial space, not a residence. The contract they signed was for one year, renewable for up to five, "despite the fact that the law states it must be seven years when the landlord is a legal entity," the platform points out. After five years, the landlord reclaimed the apartment and from then on "didn't fix anything, neither the dampness nor other problems." Furthermore, the contract had been signed by the tenant's ex-partner, who has a restraining order against him and her two children. The group also denounces that the property owner "owns more than ten properties," a fact he allegedly "hidden" in the certificate attached to the lawsuit. They also suspect the possible "falsification" of a registry document. The woman didn't understand the dates of the eviction and the trial. "She planned to go to the trial without a lawyer, unaware that she would be evicted before the trial for not having requested a public defender within the first three days after receiving the lawsuit," says the platform, which adds that the Social Services department of the Manacor City Council "made an attempt in court" to stop the eviction for this family, but "the court ignored them." Helplessness

Furthermore, the platform denounces the "defenselessness" of the woman and her two evicted children, a situation the group is considering reporting to the Congressional committee that oversees compliance with the Charter of Citizens' Rights before the Justice Administration. They assert that this Friday morning, court officials at the Court of First Instance Number 3 in Manacor refused to read the document submitted by the affected woman, which she had also previously sent yesterday to a court email address that has since changed, making it unrecoverable. In this document, the affected woman explains that the premises where she lives "are registered as a dwelling" and that, following the complaint received by the Manacor City Council's Urban Planning Department, she has been unable to access the file because she had not been notified. She also explains that, due to her status as a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her ex-partner, she has lost her job and is "not in a position to know" how to defend herself or understand the documents. She claims she didn't realize the trial date was after the eviction date and that the appointment she finally scheduled with a public defender was after the eviction planned for November 21st. Therefore, the woman requests the retroactive annulment of the proceedings due to her "extraordinary and exceptional circumstances stemming from the violence and harassment she suffered," or, failing that, the "suspension of the proceedings" to initiate the vulnerability claim provided for by law, with the aim of "having time to begin preparing and be able to prove that we are in a situation of economic and social vulnerability."