It could take years to get the home back through the courts
08:51, 23 May 2026Updated 08:52, 23 May 2026
Murcia(Image: Getty Images)
For Irish holidaymakers, Spain has long remained the number one destination, with tens of thousands of people jetting over from Ireland each year to bask in the sunshine. Some who found themselves returning to the same region year after year have purchased holiday homes in the country, and now one Irish couple say they are facing blackmail demands after squatters moved in.
Brendan Brady was informed in mid-April that a group of squatters had been seen bringing in beds, clothes and other household items to their villa in southern Spain. It was the neighbours who alerted Brendan to the incident, and while the police were notified within 48 hours of them moving in, Brendan says they can’t do anything due to the laws surrounding squatting in the country.
Now the couple face paying thousands of euros to get them out of the property, or a lengthy legal battle to evict them in court. The police were unable to act as the property owner, Brendan’s wife, wasn’t the one to file the initial report.
“Last month, in my wife’s villa, squatters moved into it. It’s in Murcia. The police were notified within 48 hours, but because my wife didn’t notify the police, the police would do nothing about it,” he told RTÉ’s Liveline.
“They came down to the villa, they seen the squatters in the villa, but they done nothing about it. They would only do something about it if my wife was there to report it, but unfortunately she was back in Dublin.”
“[The neighbours] saw them bringing in stuff like clothes and bed gear, and various different bits and pieces that you need to get by day to day,” he added.
Brendan claims that, because a report was not filed with the Spanish police by the property owner within 48 hours of the squatters’ arrival, they are “doing nothing about it”.
Brendan said: “Since then, I went to a solicitor, and the solicitor said, with clenched lips, ‘Oh, this is a very, very difficult situation, because there were kids involved, this could take quite a while to get them out, maybe a year or two’. She said: ‘Spanish law is in favour of the squatter and not the owner of the villa.’
“My wife would have to come down to Spain and file a report to the police, and then the police would file a report to the court. But unfortunately, she is sick back in Dublin and wasn’t able to come down
“So I went off and I thought about it, and I got in touch with an eviction company who do evictions legally. They came down and they went to the Guardia Civil with me, and we filed a report.
“Up to last week, the Guardia Civil have not sent that report off to the court, so there’s been nothing has been done about it.”
Brendan says the eviction company are in contact with the squatters – and that there is now a €6,500 ransom demand to get them removed.
Brendan said: “They’re in contact with the squatters on a regular basis. They’re trying to come to some agreement with the squatters, so that the squatters will leave.
“Now, the squatters have come back with a price that they want to get out, and I said ‘no, I’m not prepared to give anything’. And then I thought about it, and I came back with a counteroffer for them to get out, and they refused it.
“So they’ve come back with another offer again, and they say they’ll get out within about 14 days, but it’s quite a lot of money for them to give them to get them out. It’s €6,500.
“It could take probably up to two years to go to the courts, and you’d probably easily spend that. So, at this stage, I would nearly be willing to pay them the €6,500 to get them out if I got the villa back quickly.
“The longer this runs on, I don’t know how many more of them will move in or what state the villa will be in after a period of time. At least if I get them out now earlier, there’s more of a likelihood that the villa will be in better condition.”
Brendan says he has “been blackmailed, without a doubt”.
He added: “I’d like to get this fixed sooner rather than later, because my wife is very concerned about this.
“She’s very worried about it, and I think the sooner she gets back to the villa, it’ll be a lot better for her health. My wife is paying the water bills and the electricity bills, and she won’t turn them off in case the house is vandalised.
“They’re getting free rent, free electricity, free water, everything else.”
Brendan suspects that he is ‘probably” going to have to buy the squatters out.
He claimed: “This is quite popular in Spain. I know the area that I’m living in now, where I’m staying at the moment, a number of people said to me ‘oh, yes, there’s a number of villas around here like that’.
“These people, these squatters, they know what they’re doing, they know the rules of the law and are well within the rules of the law to do this.”