Ruling from the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 in Güímar exonerates two Las Bajas residents for not paying the rent for the apartment they were relocated to after the closure of the access to the village they lived in, in March 2021. Judge Soraya Luengo orders the company that carried out the work to secure the embankment above the village to pay €16,849.17 (plus interest) to the plaintiff and owner of the rented property.
The amount of the verdict corresponds to the rent of the apartment and electricity supply costs incurred between November 2021 – when the owner informed the tenants that the contract had been terminated on the previous 15th of September – and the 19th of July 2023, when the affected parties, José Pérez and Ana Hernández, vacated the rehoused dwelling.
The contract was signed by the company Bernegal Infraestructuras SLU and the property owner, Agustina Morales. The two residents were listed as “inhabitants and tenants.” It was for a duration of five months and stipulated that the company paid €4,000 (€800 per month).
The relocation of the Las Bajas residents was due to the opening, on 6th May 2021, of an emergency processing file for the execution of reinforcement works to stabilize the embankment located in the Las Bajas area, due to the landslide risk identified by technicians. Residents of the village needed to be relocated to carry out this work. “At the instruction of the Güímar City Council, the defendant” and “company responsible for executing the works” drew up the rental contracts.
This is reflected in the sentence issued on the 5th of last month, which also states that on 26th August 2021, it was when “the provisional suspension of the execution of the works was agreed due to exceeding the budget, which meant they were not completed by the scheduled date.” In fact, it remains unfinished (75% completed) and subject to legal action for the stoppage and non-payment of invoices totaling over one million euros, deemed by the municipal government as a cost overrun, as the contracted budget was €342,000.
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Following the marine storm during the early hours of the 10th of April, which flooded the village whose access has been closed since March 2021, the City Council took action again and erected a barrier preventing residents from entering their homes and reinstated the closure of the village’s access road. Furthermore, the Güímar municipal government approved a grant of €6,600 (from this year’s budget) for each individual affected by the evacuation and closure of Las Bajas.
