A 58-year-old man has committed suicide by jumping into the inner courtyard of the building in which he lived and from which he was about to be evicted this morning in the Sants district of Barcelona.
Two public servants rang the doorbell of the apartment in Sants to execute the eviction of the man. The contract, in the name of one single person, dated from 2018 and the landlord had reported that the tenant had not paid rent since June 2020.
After six months, in January, the landlord filed a legal case, according to El País. After a halt in the proceedings to offer legal aid to the accused, an initial date was set for his eviction, which was then delayed.
Last appeal was rejected
The Catalan HIgh Court (TSJC) reports that the victim refused the protocol that is usually followed judicially to send personal details to municipal social services.
Last Thursday, the man presented a municipal report prepared by Barcelona city council to stop his eviction. But the document did not meet the legal requirements to suspend the eviction and the Barcelona Court of First Instance, chamber number 3, rejected it.
Archive image of Parc Espanya Industrial, in the Sants neighbourhood
Accordingly, the court went ahead with the process. Until this morning, when two officers showed up at the house to execute the eviction order.
According to El País, when they rang the bell, the man, who was alone, opened it and said "wait a minute". He then jumped into the inner courtyard of the building, and died from the fall.
Barcelona city council has not provided information on the situation of the man or the alternatives at the municipal level that were offered to him.
Main image: Archive image of "Stop evictions" placards at a housing rights protest in Catalonia / ACN