Justice opens the door to more compensation for homes damaged by line 7B

The ruling is important because it is not limited to reviewing a figure. The courts understand that the official valuation of the home was below its real value and that neither the moral damages nor the loss of belongings were sufficiently compensated. In total, the couple will receive €362,051: €57,888 more for the house, €24,000 for moral damages and €7,719 for the furniture they were unable to recover.

For those affected, the judgment has value beyond this specific case. Another 30 families are awaiting similar rulings and hope that the same criterion will be repeated. For years they were told that there was no legal scope to pay more. Now, a judge maintains that there could have been.

The conflict has dragged on since 2007, when work on line 7B altered the subsoil of San Fernando de Henares. First came the cracks, then the vibrations, the evictions and, finally, the demolition of dozens of homes. In total, 73 houses have had to be demolished and many families have spent years between temporary accommodation, claims and protests.

The Comunidad de Madrid revised some compensation payments upwards in 2023, following strong pressure from residents, but many owners considered the offer insufficient. The new ruling reinforces that feeling: it was not only about paying for square metres, but about recognising the loss of a home, furniture, stability and years of life spent waiting for an administrative response.

The regional government has not yet clarified whether it will appeal. Residents recall, however, that the current councillor Jorge Rodrigo committed not to appeal judgments favourable to those affected. For many families, that point will be key: a new legal battle would mean prolonging even further a process that already weighs too heavily.

Line 7B began as an improvement to connections in the metropolitan east, but in San Fernando it ended up becoming an urban wound. The Comunidad has already allocated more than €170 million to stabilise the ground and restore the service, suspended for three years. Even so, for those who lost their home, the technical repair is not enough.

The neighbourhood continues to live amid works, empty buildings, plots where homes once stood and neighbours still waiting for fair compensation. This ruling does not give back what was lost, but it changes something in the narrative: it recognises that the damage was greater than people wanted to admit and that compensation cannot be settled with an administrative figure if real life was left much more broken.