The Confederation of Tenants' Unions announced this Tuesday the launch of a campaign to launch the first state-wide rent strike directed against the real estate company Alquiler Seguro, which it holds responsible for maintaining "systematic and structural practices contrary to legality", according to what it stated in a public note.
They detail that this initiative is launched after years of conflicts, claims, and court proceedings. "We cannot wait any longer. We are fed up with illegal fees, with the imposition of insurance and supplies with companies from the same group, with the lack of maintenance and with dozens of abuses such as charging up to 200 euros for visiting a home," the confederation has stated.
As a first measure, the Confederation of Tenants' Unions has announced that it will visit the almost 30,000 homes that Alquiler Seguro manages throughout the State with the aim of informing and organizing the tenants.
According to them, they have already managed to organize hundreds of families, many of them affected who have approached the unions on their own initiative: "They are tenants who have called us after years of abuse. People are fed up and want to take action," they point out from the Confederation.
Among its main demands is the return of the "scammed" money, although the Confederation emphasizes that this battle is not limited to the tenants of Alquiler Seguro, but also aims to confront the escalating cost of accessing rental housing. "Every 5 or 7 years we are forced to disburse more than 4,000 euros to enter a rental home and rising," it denounces.
The origin of the conflict dates back to February 2024, when the Madrid Tenants' Union filed a lawsuit before the courts and, in parallel, filed a complaint before the General Directorate of Consumer Affairs for practices such as the illegal collection of fees, the imposition of abusive clauses, or the violation of the right of withdrawal.
This administrative action has resulted in a sanction of 3.6 million euros by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, which is still pending a firm resolution.
In parallel, the union maintains another legal claim against the company for the "hidden" collection of fees and the "irregular" management of deposits.
However, the trial will not start until February 2028, which, they claim, highlights the inability of the judicial system to respond to the current housing emergency. "Justice is too slow to stop abuses we suffer every day. That is why we have decided to take the initiative," the organization states.
For the Confederation, neither the Consumer fine, which has no effects for those who already paid those concepts, nor individual legal actions are enough to repair the damage, and for this reason they propose the strike campaign "as an act of disobedience and direct action against abuses".
The campaign will be structured in stages and the final call for the strike will be debated and voted on in tenant assemblies once the first phase concludes, focused on contacting all tenants. For this reason, clarifies the Confederation, the start of the strike still does not have a fixed date.
From the organization, they maintain that the business model of Alquiler Seguro "will not be able to withstand a strike of these characteristics and will be forced to reorganize its operation."
"They will not be able to meet the payment guarantee they offer," remark the Tenants' Unions, who see it as feasible that the real estate agency will also stop responding to the landlords, "in the same way that it already systematically fails to fulfill its responsibilities with the tenants."
The Confederation of Tenants' Unions groups unions from more than a dozen cities and territories (Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville, Malaga, Ibiza, Cadiz, Asturias, Vigo, Guadalajara, Segovia) and coordinates common strategies in defense of the right to housing.
The Confederation was constituted last year as a coordination space for the tenant movement at a state level and seeks to launch joint campaigns against the "abuses" of the rental market, strengthen the collective organization of tenants, and serve as a tool to project local conflicts to the state sphere.
To the campaign against Alquiler Seguro have also joined the Housing Union of Murcia, LAB Etxebizitza (Euskal Herria), the Housing Union of Carolines (Alicante) and Right to the Roof (Gran Canaria).