An armored door was installed on January 3 to prevent him from entering the house, and since then Juan Carlos Infante has spent a month with the same clothes and 20 euros in his pocket, with all his belongings inside the house. Previously, the bank had also filed a criminal complaint against him; the Irún could have ended up in prison. “They’re just gangsters,” he says. But let's count from the beginning to better understand Infante's ordeal.

Infante is 41 years old and when he was 19-20 he bought a small and old apartment, where he has lived for more than twenty years. He was out of work and continued to pay the mortgage while receiving unemployment and the subsidy, but when both were finished he tried to reach an agreement with the then Caja; “their answer was that once the non-payment process started, there was no stopping”, and around 2010 the bank acquired the property of the house and was dismissed. “‘As a favor we will give you half an hour to take all things,’ they told me, and since I refused, they gave me the page that said I left things there of my own free will to sign.” Instead, Infante occupied the house the next day, then contacted the Layoffs Stop platform and tried to negotiate social rent, “but nothing.” His case had a considerable impact on the media and he believes that Kutxabank had a good eye on him: “They aggressively told me that due to the media turmoil, some employees of the Irun branch would be fired and that it was my fault; they treated me like a criminal. It hurt them a lot to have such a reputation in the media and they are hungry for revenge with me, they wanted to take me through the criminal route so I could end up in prison, but the judge stopped the process.” The court decision, in fact, allowed the Irún to remain at home and ordered him to negotiate. The property of the house, however, is owned by the bank, a situation that has generated extreme behaviors.

“They never responded, they don’t want an agreement”

“We have never sat down to negotiate,” says Infante, “the lawyer of the Stop Layoffs platform and I have sent letters to them, we have proposed social rent to them, and they have never responded, they do not want an agreement.” Now, even the Irundi do not want to remain at home: “Psychologically I can no longer, I can’t and I don’t want to go back to that house, I’ve spent five years living without light and water on Kutxabank’s orders and the conditions are unbearable.” When he went to Iberdrola to make the payment, he was told that Kutxabank had given the order not to supply electricity. For some time, he got a job at a gas station where the bank deducted a percentage directly from his paycheck. After changing the door lock five times, the armored door was installed and the objective was achieved: since then Infante has not returned to the floor, he is in a hostel paid by social services. “It takes a long time to install the armored door and the juxtaposition was done on the day I spent the whole day outside. A great coincidence, isn't it? I didn't get caught..."

“They take away the opportunity to have a future”

“It’s hard to lose a house after so many years, but the goal now is to pay off the debt in return for the peso.” Every month, 30% interest in arrears has been added to the debt and at the moment the bank asks for more than 160,000 euros, “when I almost paid for the house; imagine, I have been paying since I was 20 years old! They're asking me as many as two homes, considering the appraisal. It’s completely abusive, and being immersed in this vicious monthly cycle is suffering, it also affects you in your search for work and does not allow you to move forward, it deprives you of the opportunity to have a future, you are chained.”

Infante knocks on the door of the town hall and the mayor of Irún is willing to act as a mediator and talk to the bank so that he does not ask for more money in return for the house. The Irún believes that it will be a long process, and now his priority is to get a small apartment for rent. You can take advantage of the Income Guarantee Income for rent and the social services will pay you the income. He says that everything is going very slowly, with a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy. Two days after talking to him, he finally gets the keys to the new apartment.

“The fact that the administration doesn’t have a protocol from the moment you say you’re going to be fired, I think it’s a mistake not to put any mechanisms in place. In the accommodation, with me, there is a family of five people who have been evicted, as well as a single mother who has been dismissed, with the child with disabilities, and the City Council has empty emergency floors, unfilled. I don’t understand it.”

“I’m finally going to do something crazy”

We have heard the complicated story and asked the naive question: is it not simpler for the bank to negotiate than to arrive at this situation? “Yes, but they don’t want it to become a precedent, they want others to think they can do the same. Banks get a deal with some so they can leave the house as soon as possible and not make it public, otherwise another will ask for the play to be repeated, they fear. In fact, there are still a lot of dismissals being made today, including those for rent.”

Juan Carlos Infante, who ends his coffee with us and goes directly to the town hall, still faces many tasks and puzzles and sees the future as bleak. “I’m at the limit, psychologically affected. I haven’t slept for a long time and I’m going to end up doing something crazy, I’m going to explode.”