It's the same in France so I wouldn't even be surprised.
You can't even cut electricity/heat as it is seen inhumane and in theory you have to renovate/fix the house every time something dangerous needs to be fixed because it's illegal to provide unsafe housing.
Sometimes it takes years for people to get their house back and they often are completely trashed
France, like Spain, has strong residence protection for anyone, including homeowners. So if someone takes your house while you are away it is not legally squatting, but rather homebreaking and they will be evicted without even a trial.
If a house you own gets squatted you may stop paying for electricity/gaz/water. But to be honest apart from big corps abandoned buildings, i've never seen a squat where the electricity/water was already on.
It is illegal to rent dangerous housing. It may not be illegal to give it away in good faith, and it's certainly not your responsibility as an owner if it gets squatted. To my knowledge, and despite hearing about this constantly on homeowners forums, there has never been a case of owners being legally responsible for injuries to squatters.
> So if someone takes your house while you are away it is not legally squatting, but rather homebreaking and they will be evicted without even a trial.
At least in the US there have been cases where the squatter forged a lease and showed that to police that came to evict them. With the scant evidence the police would deem it a civil matter and you have to go to court. I'm not sure what the process is in Spain though.
Forging a lease for an empty dwelling is easy. But forging a lease for the owner's residence is much harder. You'd have to get rid of the owner's stuff, make sure the neighbors don't testify that this is the owner's residence, come up with fake papers to prove the owner lives elsewhere.
All in all, i'd be curious if you have an example because that sounds like opinion manipulation from the owners as that case is very unlikely. At least similar cases i've heard about in France have been 100% debunked. It's much more likely the owners live(d) elsewhere and had an empty dwelling squatted.
You can't even cut electricity/heat as it is seen inhumane and in theory you have to renovate/fix the house every time something dangerous needs to be fixed because it's illegal to provide unsafe housing.
Sometimes it takes years for people to get their house back and they often are completely trashed