Urban tenant eviction and bankruptcy proceedings

Abstract

The urban tenant eviction action was subject to procedural requirements established by the Housing Law, which were declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court (STC), Plenary Session, of January 29, 2025. However, Organic Law 1/2025, of January 2, on measures regarding the efficiency of the public justice service, established a new procedural requirement consisting of prior recourse to the Appropriate Means of Dispute Resolution (ADR). Therefore, failure to do so constitutes grounds for inadmissibility of the claim.

An eviction action brought before the declaration of bankruptcy due to a prior breach may be terminated by judge before judgment is issued, for petition of the insolvency administrators, either to maintain business activity in the interests of the bankruptcy (in the case of the leasing of business premises) or to ensure the housing needs of the bankrupt and their family. If the eviction judgment has already been issued when the bankruptcy is declared, the contract may be reinstated by the bankruptcy administrator for one of these two purposes. The action for stoping the urban tenant eviction procesure or reinstatement of the contract takes place before the trial judge, in the oral proceding, and on the basis of a special provision, Article 168 of the TRLC.

It is also possible for the landlord to exercis e an action for eviction of an urban tenant once bankruptcy has been declared. In this case, this action must be filed through the bankruptcy proceedings and before the bankruptcy judge. Applying article 164 of the TRLC, a general provision that contemplates the possibility of maintaining contracts of sucesive performance contracts for breaches prior to or subsequent to the bankruptcy declaration, it would be possible for the bankrupt, in the event of intervention, or the bankruptcy administrator, in the event of suspension of the bankrupt‘s administrative and disposition powers, to oppose the termination, requesting, in the interests of the bankruptcy proceedings, that the breached lease be maintained in force.