This Thursday, several aspects within the Law on Efficiency of Justice come into force, a broad reform of the judicial system that also includes modifications on issues such as evictions due to occupation, golden visas, and regulations on tourist apartments.
This law, promoted by the Ministry of Justice, incorporated multiple amendments during parliamentary processing that reform various laws.
These are some of the main ones:
Streamlining Squatting Cases
The regulation introduces a change in the Law of Criminal Procedure (Lecrim) that will allow streamlining evictions in some cases of occupation. This is a modification to article 795.1 of this law, whereby the crimes of usurpation of real estate and trespassing will be processed through the abbreviated procedure (fast trials).
Community Consent for Tourist Apartments
It also reforms the Horizontal Property Law, so that owners who wish to operate their properties as tourist apartments must have the consent of the community of owners.
Elimination of 'Golden Visas'
It includes the elimination of 'golden visas' by modifying the law on support for entrepreneurs and their internationalization. In this way, visas and authorizations for the acquisition of real estate and investments in bank deposits, public debt, shares, investment funds, and business projects of general interest are eliminated.
Corrects an Error in the Parity Law
This regulation also serves to correct the technical error in the parity law, promoted by the Ministry of Equality, which came into force in August 2024 and which meant the disappearance of the protection of workers who take advantage of permits or adaptation of working hours for care.
Creation of the Courts of Instance
In the field of Justice, it creates the courts of instance, a collegiate body that integrates all the single-person and first instance courts into a single organization in each judicial district. In this way, the 3,931 single-person courts will be transformed into 431 courts of instance.
These courts will be supported by the Justice Offices in the Municipalities, which replace the old justice of the peace courts and facilitate citizens' procedures without having to travel to a provincial capital.
Commitment to Mediation
The law is committed to mediation and negotiated solutions to conflict to address the excess of litigation. Thus, in the civil and commercial fields, it obliges parties to resort to negotiation - the so-called alternative dispute resolution methods (ADR) - before going to trial.
Reform of Court Costs
It carries out a reform of the costs system. Until now, the costs were paid by those who lost the trial, but this regulation establishes that an attempt must be made to reach an agreement and, if once the lawsuit is concluded it is shown that, despite being right, they have not tried to reach a prior agreement, the judge will impose the payment of costs because there has been an abuse of a public service.
