Artistic
Property
S pr pa o in in per ’s b En ty es gl ma t ish g
www.theolivepress.es
LICENCE
Meet the Ronda residents who transform celebrities homes See page 18
JULY 2024
THE MUSEUM HOMES OF SPAIN
Delve inside to see the abodes of Spain’s greatest artists
See page 24
Beating the high press A SPANISH football team has come to the rescue of a grandmother who was facing being booted from her home of six decades to make way for a tourist apartment. The plan to evict Maria Muñoz, 88, from her Cadiz house sparked outrage, with the pensioner given a cruel ultimatum: she could either leave or buy it for €147,000, which she simply
Grandmother facing eviction to make way for tourist flats is saved by local Cadiz football team By Simon Hunter
couldn’t afford. Fortunately, residents’ platforms came to her aid and when the city’s Cadiz CF football team heard about her plight they
jumped in to help. The team’s foundation has now bought the property and drawn up an indefinite rental agreement so that she can stay as long as she likes. The Fundacion de Cadiz will charge Muñoz her previous rent
of just €92 a month. The octogenarian has occupied the apartment since 1967, back when it was rented out by rooms. She lived there with her husband Antonio, and had her three children there.
In the 1990s, the property was refurbished, but she and her husband continued to pay what is known in Spain as renta antigua, or ‘old rent’, a small peppercorn sum not updated in line with inflation. It was when her husband died in 2016 that her problems began. Legally, she was required to transfer the contract over to her name, which she failed to
do, unaware of the rule. A new contract was then signed, with the €97 monthly rent. But there was a time limit to the contract, and in recent years the owners began to sell the other apartments. Meanwhile, most of the neighbouring apartments were turned into tourist rentals, with Maria’s landlords planning to do the same.