uncommon // Field WireSub-basement 2 will keep 4,812 tenant accounts open for twelve months by default, a policy Spain's parliament declined to impose on landlords this week.
Verdict: ★★★½ out of five. Sturdy, slightly damp, one attachment missing.
Spain's parliament rejected two government housing decrees on Friday, one of which would have made residential leases renew automatically. Eleven hours later the Billing Department of the Mudwick Isle Water & Sludge Authority, Sub-basement 2, issued Memorandum 26-114: tenant accounts will now renew themselves for twelve months unless the tenant, and only the tenant, says otherwise.
This correspondent reviewed the policy on the ground, between the pneumatic-tube station and the stapler cage.
What we liked
Build quality is high. The old system closed an account thirty days before the lease ended unless the tenant filed Form 11-R, which was available at one window open Tuesdays from 10:00 to 11:40. Of 2,140 accounts that reached lease-end in the third quarter, 37 percent lapsed because no form was filed. That is 792 households with the water off. Nobody had to refuse them. The clock did it.
The new default renews all of them. Deputy Head of Accounts Receivable Odalric Fenwick-Marsh, a goblin, confirmed it on the record. "We watched a legislature fail to do this on television," he said. "We have a pneumatic tube and a rubber stamp. We did it."
Value for money is good. The early-closure fee of 14 silver is waived for the first renewal period. The stamp is new and leaves a clean impression.
What we did not
The landlord side remains unchanged. A landlord who wants a tenant gone can still end the account with a single carbon-copy form, 11-L, and the Department will honour it within five working days. The Spanish text would have obliged the owner to pay a year's rent in compensation. Fenwick-Marsh said Sub-basement 2 has "no mechanism for that, and no floor space for one." The Department holds the line at 6 filing cabinets, 4 clerks and 1 window.
Battery life, in the sense of staff endurance, is poor. Senior Collections Clerk Grelka Ninepenny has processed 311 renewals since 08:15 and reports a stamp-hand tremor. The Department has no replacement hand. there is a particular silence in a room where everyone has agreed the paperwork will outlive them. Ninepenny re-inked the pad and went back to the tube.
The unit also cannot sort out subletting. Memo 26-114 says only that sublets "are a matter for the Authority's Legal Annex," which is a cupboard.
Should you buy it
If you are a tenant, yes. It costs nothing, needs no form and cannot be un-stamped by anyone but you. If you are a landlord, the policy offers nothing, and the Department wishes it noted that this is the same as before.
The Department will review the memo on 2 January. Form 11-R has been withdrawn from the window and moved to the recycling bin beside it, where 340 copies remain.
