Case law and legal doctrineCriminal lawTwenty-six days of full board without paying: when a hotel debt stops being civil and becomes fraud

The facts and the procedural history

• Hotel located in La Vall d’Alba, province of Castellón
• Stay from 22 December 2023 to 15 January 2024
• Twenty-six days on a full-board basis
• An appearance of financial solvency presented to the establishment
• Departure from the hotel without paying for the services
• Debt of 2,283 euros
• Conformity judgment: one year of imprisonment, a fine and compensation of 2,283 euros plus statutory interest

The legal points

• The deception must precede the contract, not follow it
• In accommodation cases the appearance of solvency is the sufficient deception
• The prior intention not to pay is established by circumstantial evidence
• An unpaid debt alone does not amount to a criminal offence
• Sentencing range under Article 248: six months to three years of imprisonment
• A conformity judgment requires judicial scrutiny and the defendant’s free consent

The structure of the deception in so-called accommodation fraud

Article 248 of the Spanish Criminal Code punishes those who, for profit, use sufficient deception to cause another to fall into error and thereby induce an act of disposal to his own or another’s detriment, with imprisonment of six months to three years. In unpaid accommodation the deception lies neither in forged documents nor in an elaborate scheme, but in creating an appearance of solvency that leads the establishment to provide lodging and meals in the expectation of a future payment the guest never intended to make.

Antecedent intent as the decisive element

Settled case law requires the deception to be prior to, or simultaneous with, the act of disposal. A person who contracts intending to pay and later cannot do so commits a civil breach, however large the debt. A person who contracts with an already formed intention not to pay commits fraud from the first day, even though the loss accrues day by day. That subjective element, internal by definition, is proved by circumstantial evidence: the complete absence of means from the outset, a disproportionate length of stay, shifting explanations about the method of payment, repeated postponement of the invoice and, most tellingly, the manner of leaving the premises.

The length of the stay as an indicator

Twenty-six days of full board is not a neutral fact. A long stay allows the establishment to verify solvency at any moment, yet it also reveals, where not a single partial payment is made, a pattern of delay consistent with an initial intention not to pay for the service. Defence analysis must focus on precisely that point: partial payments, a pre-authorised card or genuine steps towards financing shift the case towards the territory of contractual breach.

The conformity judgment: what it is and what it entails

The decision was delivered by conformity. Spanish law regulates it, depending on the procedural track, in Article 655 and Article 787 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Conformity is not a private bargain between the parties: it requires the defendant to give it knowingly and freely, the court to verify that the legal classification and the sentence are correct, and the accepted facts to fit the offence charged. The court is not bound where the classification is manifestly wrong or where it finds that consent was not freely given.

When conformity is advisable and when it is not

Conformity allows a reduction of sentence within the statutory framework, avoids the exposure of a public trial and, where the resulting sentence does not exceed two years and the statutory requirements are met, facilitates access to suspension of enforcement. In return, the defendant accepts the facts and substantially waives the right of appeal, which is confined to narrowly defined grounds. It is a decision to be taken only after a rigorous examination of the prosecution evidence: where the prior intention not to pay is not firmly established, acquittal or referral to the civil courts are realistic outcomes that conformity forecloses for good.