The people who cannot afford the payment of their mortgages and are affected by eviction processes can receive legal advice and opt, in those cases of families with children, for shelter homes offered through the Caritas and Broseta lawyers help program.

The service was started two years ago, when Caritas detected – among people that flocked to request aid – a significant increase in cases of families who were losing their homes for non-payment, and that they did not know how to resolve this situation, explains Belen Lado at the EFE, the supervisor for the reception service of this institution.

The cases were of all kinds, ‘from parents who feared losing their homes because they endorsed the purchase of real estate to their children, or people who had exhausted the unemployment benefit and could not cope with the payment of mortgages’ she said.

Caritas did not then have a specific service of legal advice, and initiated contact with the office of Broseta lawyers to respond to that increasing demand.

In 2010, only 83 people requested the service, 57 of them foreign. In 2011 126 people attended, 75 of them (mostly) Spanish, and from January to May of this year a total of 107 people have passed through the service.

Every Thursday two lawyers from the Broseta firm and its subsidiary Lexer (which specialises in recovery of large portfolios, foreclosure and Bank policy procedures) come to the headquarters of Caritas in Valencia to attend the service, with an average of ten visits each time. ‘They are mainly unemployed construction workers, with difficult family situations’ explains Alejandro Rios, Partner of the Lawyers firm who are selflessly working with Caritas in this legal advice.

Immigrants are the group in a ‘more complicated’ situation, since the Spanish have roots and often receive help from the family, he says. A married couple of Uruguayan origin who are parents of a five year old girl and prefer to remain anonymous, are preparing to return to their country of origin and visited Rios to obtain advice on the process of surrendering their home to clear the mortgage. A flat was acquired for 40 years, with a mortgage of 120,000 Euros and a monthly fee of 450 Euros, which could be paid without problems with the plumbing work of the father of the family, during the construction boom. ‘A year ago I became jobless and we are in the red’ explains the father, who says that his situation is unsustainable, and that they have decided to return to their country on advice of their family and given the better employment prospects there than are seen in Spain.

Legal advice deals with formalities, conditions of contracts, refinancing of debt or handing back their properties to clear the debt, and on procedures in execution. In addition to this legal service, Caritas offers shelter homes to families with children of school age, who have been affected by evictions, in order to avoid them being doomed to a situation of marginality, explains Concha Silvestre, supervisor for the housing program at this institution. ‘Loss of a home can result in the loss of a place in school, a change of doctor, disassociation from the neighbuorhood, and quick de-structuring, since all the social resources are based on where you live’, and this mostly affects children, she says.

Find attached the information at Las Provincias SOURCE: LAS PROVINCIAS