Spain's squatting problem: your alarm is a witness, not a guard

An alarm doesn't stop a break-in: it certifies when you get squatted

A Prosegur, Securitas or Verisure alarm won't stop a burglary. It serves a different purpose, and anyone who signs up without knowing that is in for a surprise. What the customer buys is not a guard: it's a notary. A third party — the alarm monitoring station, the ARC — that puts in writing the exact day and time the system was triggered. That paper, not the siren, is what carries weight in court later, when someone turns up living in your home with a signed rental contract and a food delivery receipt as proof of residence.

One blunt idea runs through the whole discussion and sums up the argument: against burglary, an alarm buys you minutes; against squatting, it buys you evidence. The police arrive when they arrive, if they arrive at all. But the ARC certifies that the alarm went off at 23:47 on a Tuesday. That is what the squatter cannot fabricate.

What an alarm connected to an ARC actually does

The distinction is technical and has legal consequences. A home IP camera or a cheap sensor alerts the owner's phone. That's it. An installation connected to an accredited monitoring station generates a timestamped record that the company can certify to law enforcement. When the squatter presents a rental contract and a food delivery receipt from the previous week to prove established residence, the ARC provides the opposite: that the intrusion was detected at a specific moment.

Some argue that a home recording with date and time serves the same function. The counterargument in circulation is that it's not the same: a private video can be disputed, while a certificate from a professional third party is admitted with less friction. And above all, institutional inertia weighs heavily. The patrol that shows up doesn't know who is lying and doesn't always have an incentive to find out. A third party saying "it went off at this time" takes the problem off their hands.

Wired, accredited, with the panel hidden

The technical consensus is unanimous on three points. First, wired: wireless installations can be jammed with relative ease, and the ones sold in big-box stores don't pass the test. Second, accredited, with a certificate signed by the installer, who is the one held responsible. Third, the control panel — the heart of the system — hidden and protected by an instant tamper detector, so that any attempt to tamper with it is treated as sabotage and triggers the alert.

The reference point that keeps coming up is the sector that takes this seriously: jewellers and petrol stations. There, insurers won't accept the risk unless the installation is wired. That's the best indicator of what works and what is mere decoration. As for sirens, here's a fact almost nobody checks: most run at around 85 or 90 decibels, and modern panels already have one built in.

The price and the fine print nobody reads

The monthly fee is the bait. The business is in the lock-in contract. The figures mentioned in the discussion point to 24- or 36-month contracts, with cases of 60 months in catalogues of expensive equipment sold in a rush. And automatic renewal by silence: you sign nothing, you simply stop paying attention. Some put the reasonable limit at around 10 euros a month for a camera and a basic hub; above that, you're paying for the brand.

The equipment isn't foolproof either. A frequency jammer takes down the installation, although decent systems detect the sabotage and trigger the alarm. A hammer blow to the hub neutralises it, but the trigger is already logged at the ARC. The conclusion that wins out: the alarm doesn't prevent the entry, it documents the entry.

The AI that filters false alarms

The least known development is the use of artificial intelligence at monitoring stations. Algorithms distinguish a real intrusion from a pet, a branch or a change in light, and perform automatic video verification: if they detect a person lurking, they pass the alert to the human operator; if not, they filter it out. The goal is to reduce false alarms and optimise response times.

There's also room for rural settings: standalone battery-powered packs exist for homes without mains electricity, always with an accredited installation and a signed liability waiver, because if the power goes out, it's not the company's fault.

Insurance and the neighbour's camera

A practical detail that decides purchases: some home insurance policies only cover burglary if there are window bars or an alarm connected to a monitoring station. The IP camera, for its part, is not a detection element but a surveillance and support tool. And watch where it points: capturing the neighbour's terrace or part of the street is a data protection problem that ends with the installer who signs the certificate.

The ending is not reassuring. Given all this, alarms will keep being sold as a deterrent and bought, in reality, as evidence. If the trend holds, the next step will be AI video verification as a mid-range standard. For now, nobody has proven that a siren scares off someone who comes in with a sledgehammer.