@Jillian115 @Mary419 @Brian-and-Robin0 @Jennifer2948 @Fred2329 @Christine615 @Nikki177 @Liv
Hi,
So this is an update on the situation -
I received the 'criminal court' summons email at the end of June and since then I have been waiting for help and / or advice from AIRBNB's 'dedicated department'. In August 2020 I was told by someone from this department (or a similar department) that AIRBNB would deal with the problem and that I was not to get involved. AIRBNB did evict the guests in a little over 24 hours, which was great. But, now the court case summons has arrived and they are no longer willing to help it seems despite the earlier promise.
So fed up with waiting, today I spoke to a Spanish lawyer by Zoom, which cost 60 Euro. He told me that the case was Criminal and not Civil and that these were my options -
1 - Go to the Spanish Embassy to give 'Power of Attorney' to the Spanish lawyer, this will be quite involved and requires an Apostille for each document, so it will be expensive and maybe not finalised in one day. The nearest Embassy is a 6 hr return journey.
OR
2 - I make a 2 day car journey to the Criminal Court in Spain and present myself there to be served with the court summons. I can then go to a Spanish lawyer and give them a Power of Attorney to present my case in court as I am in Spain.
OR
3 - If I do nothing, then nothing will happen, unless I go to Spain. In this situation the worst case scenario is that I will be arrested at the airport or if stopped by the police at the border. Obviously, not wanting to be arrested as I have never been in trouble in my life, I am then stuck in the situation of not going to Spain, and so therefore I will be homeless.
Until we know what is in the court papers we cannot know what to do, so I will go to Spain myself as that will be the easiest and probably cheapest option (2 day car journey, road tolls, hotel, dog kennels etc). The lawyer will then be able to go to the Criminal Court with all the correspondence between myself, AIRBNB, the guest and the neighbours to hopefully clear my name or at least only a small fine.
Do not kid yourselves that this cannot happen to you when a guest causes upset to a neighbour. It was 'only' a noise issue and it was resolved within 24 hrs of being made aware, but somehow it has escalated to this. Do not think that because you have cameras outside it will not happen to you, believe me it can happen very quickly and even if you manage to get the guests out quickly it is still all down to if you have understanding neighbours or if they have a litigious tendency.