The Navarra appeal court and the eviction no one could stop: vulnerability is not enough when the protecting decree has lapsed
The Navarra Provincial Court confirms that between repealed decrees there was no rule to suspend an eviction and that those orders cannot be appealed.
A family can be in a real situation of vulnerability and still fail to get its eviction suspended if the rule that allowed paralysing it has ceased to be in force. That is the conclusion, legally clear and socially uncomfortable, of an order of the Third Section of the Provincial Court of Navarra analysed by Economist & Jurist, which also settles a delicate procedural question: the court decision accepting or rejecting the suspension of an eviction on vulnerability grounds does not, as a rule, admit an appeal.
A procedure that ended in default
The case began with an eviction claim for non-payment against two tenants who did not pay the amounts demanded, did not leave the dwelling and did not appear to contest. The proceedings ended by decree of 16 January 2026 and enforcement was set in motion. With the eviction under way, those affected filed on 11 March a request for suspension on social and economic vulnerability grounds, supported by a social services report.
The court rejected the request because at that moment there was no rule in force authorising the suspension. The tenants appealed to the Provincial Court alleging an insufficient examination of their situation and claiming the one-month period of article 704 of the Civil Procedure Act to voluntarily leave their habitual residence.
Neither appeal nor article 47
The Provincial Court dismisses the appeal with two arguments litigants should note. The first is procedural: orders ruling on a request to suspend an eviction on vulnerability grounds cannot be appealed, because they do not end the proceedings and no provision expressly recognises that appeal; the Civil Procedure Act allows a motion for reconsideration against enforcement decisions, but reserves appeal for expressly provided cases.
The second goes to the merits. Protection had been left without normative coverage: Royal Decree-law 8/2023 had temporarily extended the suspension and its effects ended, Royal Decree-law 16/2025 was repealed by Congress and Royal Decree-law 2/2026 was repealed on 26 February. By March 2026 a complete normative vacuum had opened. Against it, article 47 of the Constitution is not enough: the right to decent housing does not by itself grant a right to suspend an eviction, which requires a rule developing when and how the eviction must be stopped.
The panel adds two practical clarifications. The social services report submitted merely stated the vulnerability in two lines, without income, family situation, health or housing alternative, and such a terse statement does not reliably prove vulnerability. And the additional month of article 704 of the Civil Procedure Act does not apply to tenancy evictions, which have special regulation.
An order with an expiry date
The order was issued one day before the entry into force of Royal Decree-law 29/2026, approved after the case of María del Carmen Abascal, which restores until 2030 the suspension mechanisms for vulnerable people without a housing alternative and allows them to be applied to proceedings already under enforcement if the eviction has not yet been carried out. If these tenants' eviction is still pending, they could try to avail themselves of the new regulation with full proof of their vulnerability.
The episode completes the picture of tension in civil enforcement drawn by the three million unenforced judgments and connects with the shifting regulation of renting we analysed in the extension of Royal Decree-law 28/2026. For landlord and tenant, the deposit and the guarantees agreed in the contract regain prominence when legal protection depends on the parliamentary calendar.
Source: Economist & Jurist (29 October 2026).
Related links
Fuentes
- economistjurist.es. Accessed 2 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
