A months-long controversy that exposed deep-rooted flaws in Spain’s dysfunctional housing market has reached a fragile resolution: 87-year-old disabled tenant Maricarmen Abascal, whose forcible eviction from her lifelong Madrid home sparked mass protests across the country, will be allowed to move back to her apartment, her legal representative has confirmed.
Abascal’s connection to the 700-square-foot central Madrid apartment stretches back three generations. Her father first signed a rental lease for the property in 1956, and when her parents passed away, she inherited the tenancy, benefiting from long-standing rent caps that kept her monthly payment at just €500, a sum she could cover from her modest government pension. That stability shattered in 2018, when Spanish investment firm Urbagestión purchased the building as part of a broader wave of commercial property acquisitions in Spain’s capital. The new ownership immediately moved to raise Abascal’s rent nearly fivefold, to €2,650 per month – an amount more than double her monthly €1,350 pension. After public outcry, Urbagestión offered a reduced rate of €1,650, but even that lower figure remained out of Abascal’s reach on her fixed income.
Over three years, Spanish courts blocked three separate attempts by the firm to evict Abascal, but on September 23, law enforcement officers carried out the forced removal, carrying the 87-year-old disabled woman out of her home on a stretcher. The shocking footage of the eviction spread rapidly across Spanish social media and national news, leaving Abascal hospitalized for severe exhaustion and triggering widespread public fury. Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Madrid on September 27 to protest the eviction, demanding sweeping reforms to protect renters amid a nationwide housing shortage that has sent rental prices soaring across the country.
In a press briefing on Monday, Abascal’s lawyer Beatriz Duro announced that a tentative agreement had been reached between her client and Urbagestión, bringing the high-profile case to a temporary resolution. Duro emphasized that the breakthrough came “as a direct result of sustained social mobilization” across the country, noting that both sides had approached negotiations with goodwill. Under the terms of the new deal, which is yet to be signed, Abascal will pay a monthly rent aligned with her income, averting the crippling price hike the investment firm had initially demanded. Abascal will sign the official contract once she is released from the hospital and her health stabilizes, Duro added.
The case has already pushed national political leaders to respond to growing public anger over the country’s housing crisis. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has pledged to introduce new housing relief measures when his cabinet convenes on Tuesday, and his minority Socialist Party is pushing forward a new rent regulation bill to address national public outcry. Official data from the Bank of Spain estimates that the country faces a shortage of 700,000 affordable housing units, a gap driven by years of underconstruction and rising demand that has pushed rental prices up by more than 20% in major cities since 2020. While Abascal’s supporters are celebrating the outcome as a rare victory for grassroots tenant activism, they have vowed to continue pushing for systemic reform to prevent similar traumatic evictions from happening to vulnerable low-income and elderly renters across Spain.