Spanish banks to restrict evictions after suicides

Source: guardian

Spain's banking association announced on Monday it would freeze eviction orders for the next two years in cases of "extreme hardship", following widespread alarm and protests after a woman killed herself on Friday moments before she was due to be evicted, the second such death in less than a month.

"This cannot be allowed to go on," said Juan Carlos Mediavilla, a judge who attended the scene after Amaia Egaña, 53, leapt from her fourth-floor flat in the northern city of Bilbao.

"It's a problem which has been talked about for some time. The time for talk is over and steps must be taken for something to happen."

Within hours of Egaña's death noisy protesters had gathered on the streets of Bilbao. Stickers saying "murderers" were fixed to cash machines, while the governing People's party and opposition Socialists pledged to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to agree on reforming mortgage laws.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/spanish-banks-evictions-suicides