Squatter moves into British couple's holiday home and refuses to leave

A British woman has been forced to sell her dream Spanish holiday villa after a squatter moved in and refused to budge. Joanne Venet, 61, said her nightmare began when a tenant declined to pay his €1,400 monthly rent for the €450,000 three-bedroom luxury villa near Benidorm earlier this year.

Joanne describes the coastal resort as having some 'magical parts to it', but what unfolded next was far from enchanting. She had to grapple with Spain's stringent tenancy laws which could have resulted in her spending years and thousands of pounds to evict the tenant, who was a Spanish national.

The wedding celebrant and actress from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, had to fork out £4,000 to an eviction agency - or 'de-squatters' - to remove the tenant who owed €5,600 (£4,800) for four months of unpaid rent and bills. When she finally regained possession of the property, it was wrecked and littered with cocaine and cannabis paraphernalia, and debris.

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Joanna says the entire ordeal has left her drained, unable to work and so traumatised that she is selling her dream villa which she had successfully rented out for years. Joanne said: "We couldn't get him out – we were advised 'you can't even knock on the door'.

"We couldn't even go and see him unless we had an appointment with him. He wouldn't leave – he decided to blackmail us and said 'I'm not leaving, I'm going to stay in your house'.

"He said 'I can stay in here, I can do what I want, I have my rights'. I'm an actress and I'm a wedding celebrant.

"I'm normally on social media, I'm normally at wedding fairs. The mental strain of it stopped me advertising myself, I've not got enough weddings for next year because I didn't work.

"All that happening in Spain, it makes you feel so down that you can't just get on with normal life, knowing that somebody's living in your house." Exasperated, the duo attempted to reclaim their property when they learnt that Spanish legislation meant they could only remove the squatter instantly if he had occupied the premises within the previous 48 hours.

Finally, they re-gained access to their villa however, this was only achieved because the squatter eventually agreed to a voluntary departure arrangement. The removal company revealed it had involved local authorities after finding cocaine and cannabis on the premises.

The removal procedure took the pair approximately five weeks. The mum-of-three said: "It would have normally taken two years if it was just left to us.

"It's only because I had spare money from an inheritance that I could afford to do that." Joanne and her husband discovered the process of removing their squatters became even more challenging due to post-Brexit regulations restricting how long Britons can remain in Spain.

Those travelling with a British passport are limited to just 90 days within any 180-day period in the Schengen zone, which encompasses Spain. Anyone wishing to remain longer must secure a visa or risk being barred from the Schengen area.

She said: "We can't stay there together at the moment. We've got to make sure we've got X amount of days.

"That's why my husband's there, we didn't want to leave the house. We're scared of squatters going in.

"This guy was a tenant, but if we leave it empty we're scared of squatters going in." Joanne now hopes to see Spanish legislation reformed to offer better safeguards for property owners.

She added: "We do want to sell it now, yes. We just can't have this stress."