I don't know anything about Spanish law, but couldn't you just pay 1/3 of the expenses instead of 1/2 and tell him to **** off? If he's on the lease, he's the only one liable if rent/utilities don't get paid. Sure he could boot you, but maybe not legally. And if he did, it sounds like he'd be paying 3/3 of rent/utilities or be forced to try and find someone to agree to living in this situation, or to be duped into living into the situation, neither of which is your problem.

Having been in this situation before though (in the US), and having weighed my options, the solution I always came to was to find another place.

In terms of the hair care products... just keep all your stuff in your bedroom then take your stuff to the bathroom in the mornings and bring it back to your room when you're done. Problem solved. If they ask to borrow your gel, then pull old something about mary trick.

Magi: Already did that

knivesout: Seems to be the more attractive option. Might be willing to pay the extra cash per month to get away from it now rather than waiting until the fall.

Could he boot me out legally? I'm not sure. The government and landlord recognize me as living here despite not being on the lease and that could be in my favor. Thing is that the Spanish court system is woefully inefficient and the cost of taking him to task both financially and time-wise wouldn't make legal action worthwhile. It would just be easier to find a new place. Getting booted is unlikely to happen. He's already pissed at having to deal with other guy on an indefinite basis. He doesn't need another potential headache to deal with.

If he's pissed off at the situation too, then he definitely needs to man up and pay 2/3rds and realize he caused the mess, or kick the guy out. Again I don't know how Spanish law works, but if you haven't signed anything saying that you're responsible for the full rent under lease terms (or sublease terms), there's absolutely no recourse he can take for you not paying 1/2 rent (or any rent). If he is the only one on the lease, it's all on him.

It doesn't matter if the landlord knows you live there. It's all about the contract. And I assume having contracts in place is pretty universal when it comes to this situation.

Your roommate is pissed at having to deal with the other guy but doesn't want to ask the guy to pay 1/3 rent?

I don't have a written contract. Could I not pay the rent? Sure. But I am on good terms with roommate and don't want to burn bridges with people who have been friendly with me. This isn't a series of problems over the course of a year that have come to a head. This has been a year of a solid roommate relationship up until now. He could have ****ed me over if he wanted to and holds all the cards in his hand to do it, but he hasn't.

Other guy is broke, unemployed, and aside from roommate's generosity is homeless and does not have proper immigration papers. Can't squeeze blood from a rock.

His explanation to me was that the initial agreement was to provide a place to stay for around a week. When he realized the severity of the situation, he couldn't in good conscience throw him out on the street and decided to let him stay until he was back on his feet. Spain's economy is better than it was a few years ago, but unemployment is still quite high and homeless illegals have a hard time getting jobs that don't involve selling counterfeit goods on blankets in the center of the city. I don't see him going anywhere for quite a while and roommate probably realizes the same thing now.

Yeah, unemployment in Spain sucks. Tough situation. What does this guy have as far as job experience/education?

Not sure about education. I know he was born in Argentina. Given that I am told that he "doesn't have any papers" leads me to believe that he is not a citizen of Spain. He worked in Buenos Aires in a disco in some capacity many years ago. When I met him a bit less than a year ago, he was a self-employed Crossfit instructor. He couldn't keep his business going and moved in with his girlfriend in Denmark. He proposed to her while they were living there. They moved to Germany and at some point they broke up. Not sure if he left on his own or if he was kicked out. Considering his lack of money, I assume the latter.

He's 37 years old. I'm sure there's more to his job experience than just being a Crossfit instructor. Even if there was, it wouldn't matter. He's an illegal immigrant right now and there's no sign of amnesty like there was in 2005. Economic climate won't allow for it. Nobody will hire an illegal when there are tons of people with papers who are at least as qualified as him for any job he has the skills for.

Yeah, sorry, skimmed the thread and missed he was an illegal. Law in Spain is if you hire an illegal and they rat you out they get a Visa and you get fined huge, so no one hires them.

As I said, tough spot. There are lots of douchy clubs in Barcelona he could potentially work at. Less unemployment in Catalonia AFAIK as well, so tell him to move to Barca.

jesus. what a fk'ed up scenario that is.

Doesn't seem that ****ed up to me. Sounds like a good deterrent against hiring illegals.

They've been living together for two years and he doesn't know if your uncle is gay? Bull****.

Seems like it would just draw more illegals to the area trying to get a job/visa.

The inherent problem here is that the guy clearly can't pay 1/3 of the costs, because he's unemployed and likely doesn't have the money to do so, otherwise he wouldn't be freeloading off of you to begin with. He's going to ignore you if you ask for significant money, and your actual roommate doesn't seem to be of much help, so your only play here seems to be coming up with a way to boot him.

If you really wanted to be an ******* you could always call the Spanish immigration service on this guy.

You have to get him and his wife back together.

I would watch that movie.

Less people are hiring them so I doubt more illegals will go there. In America people will hire illegals so we get more knowing they have a good shot at getting a job.

What happens is that the illegals will sublease apartments and then sell counterfeit goods on the street in the city center for money. Most of them come from Northern African countries such as Morocco since it's only about 9 miles from Spain. They're normally tolerated because Spanish cops are lazy and won't do anything unless the criminal action is blatantly obvious and a visible threat to the public.

right because all locals are awesome employees and all outsiders are BAD!!!!

we should totally run our businesses w the lazy locals(who's only advantage is being local--they deserve it!!!because they grew up here!!!) vs. actually hungry/talented outsiders...because why???--that's the stupid kind of situations that get set up in that scenario. biz owner gets penalized for hiring the 'best' worker in his/her opinion. seems fair lol.

i said that a policy encouraging illegal immigrants to rat out the employer (since this apparently gets them a visa) is a good deterrent against hiring them. I wasn't saying that it's a good thing such a policy exists, although I can see how what I posted could be construed that way.

Update:

Roommate (not the illegal) had a full-on nervous breakdown in front of me and the illegal a couple of days ago. Basically, the guy's life is absolute ****. He is ****ed emotionally, socially, and financially. His girlfriend broke up with him. He's in a pile of debt. He lost his government health insurance (I have no idea how) and has no income flow aside from the occasional English class, band gig or photo shoot. Given that he has the latter two only a few days a month and he's not cashing in. Possible that he'll lose the apartment in the near future though he said worked out a deal with the landlord to prevent that from happening.

And I thought I was the crazy one of us two.

I didn't tell him that I will be moving on because I haven't signed the rental agreement just yet. Picked the place. Want one of my friends to read the contract to see if I'm not getting raped on the deal. Gonna have a 2 bedroom apartment to myself for 350 Euros a month if all goes well. Hell of an upgrade from paying 50% of the rent while living in 25% of the apartment.

That's one hell of a plot twist.

Good to hear you decided to leave before you were presented with this information.

Took me by surprise. It was just a huge explosion of emotion from him. I mean, guy was crying his eyes out in front of us for a solid few hours.

I feel bad for him because he is a good person and I hate seeing bad things happen to good people.

But yeah def gonna gtfo. Hopefully by some time next week. My fear is that given the additional bedroom and the likelihood of him being booted out of his apartment that he'll find his way into that bedroom. Figuring that I won't speak to him until he gets his **** together so I can avoid that. After all, I'm getting a new place because I want to live alone. Would be a bit ridiculous to then invite the person I was formerly living with to stay with me.

I want the guy whos sleeping there for free snapped off.