MADRID — The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the flat where she had lived for more than seven decades has become a flashpoint in Spain's housing crisis, drawing thousands onto the streets and generating a wave of claims that mix legitimate grievance with outright falsehood.
Abascal was removed from her home in Madrid by court order, an image of police carrying her out on a stretcher turning a long-running legal dispute into a symbol for tenant activists. Protests have since spread from the capital's Puerta del Sol to other Spanish cities, with demonstrators demanding stronger protections for vulnerable renters and limits on rent increases.
The eviction was lawful, but the fight is about fairness
One of the most widely shared claims online — that the eviction was "illegal" — is false. Spanish courts authorised the removal after a years-long dispute over a protected rental contract dating back to the 1950s. The lease originally belonged to Abascal's father, passed to her mother, and then to Abascal herself. Under the rules governing such tenancies, that second transfer could only continue for two years unless the tenant had a recognised disability above 65%; Abascal's disability was recognised at 50%. Spain's Supreme Court upheld the owner's position, meaning the protected tenancy had legally expired and the property management company, Urbagestión, could recover the flat.
Protesters are not disputing the legality of the eviction. They are arguing that it was unjust — and their case rests on a quirk of Spanish law. Under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, married women could not sign financial contracts or property leases independently. Abascal's mother could inherit the lease only through subrogation upon her husband's death. Had she been a co-signer from the start, Abascal's inheritance would have counted as the first subrogation, granting her the right to stay for life. Instead, it was treated as the second, and the protection lapsed.
After the old tenancy ended, Urbagestión proposed a new rent of around €1,650 a month, far above the roughly €440 to €500 Abascal had been paying. That exceeds her monthly pension of about €1,350, effectively forcing out a long-term tenant who could not afford the market rate. Protesters are calling for stronger safeguards against evictions of vulnerable people, longer or automatically renewed contracts, and tighter caps on rent rises. Some groups also want tougher rules on speculative housing practices and greater public intervention in the rental market. They are pressing parliament to approve new protections and longer lease terms.
Misleading claims and selective editing
Another disputed assertion is that the Sindicato de Inquilinas, Spain's main tenants' union, blocked Abascal from reaching an agreement with the owner before the eviction. Urbagestión says the union made it difficult to contact Abascal directly, while her lawyer says the opposite: that the company refused repeated attempts to negotiate. Urbagestión has also accused those involved of coercion, extortion and hacking phones and email accounts, but provided no evidence for these claims in reporting reviewed by fact-checkers such as Maldita.es.
A shortened video of Abascal herself has also circulated misleadingly. In the clip, she appears to blame left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez specifically for her situation. The full interview shows she also criticises Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida — both of the right-wing Partido Popular — and Urbagestión itself. The clip uses a genuine quote but strips away the wider context of her answer.
A separate false claim involved two protesters named "Irene and Pablo" who spoke to elDiario.es at the Puerta del Sol camp. Some social-media users suggested they were Pablo Iglesias, former leader of the far-left Podemos, and MEP Irene Montero of the same party. The article itself makes clear they are a different woman of 28 and man of 37, with no indication they are the politicians in question.
The case has also become entangled in broader European debates over housing and tourism, with MEPs recently confronting the housing squeeze fuelled by tourism in cities from Barcelona to Venice. In Spain, the government has proposed measures to extend some eviction protections and lengthen rental contracts, but parliament has yet to approve them. Protesters are continuing their campaign while demanding deeper reforms to a housing system they say leaves vulnerable tenants exposed.
What happens next
Abascal has now accepted an agreement allowing her to return to the apartment once she leaves hospital. Under the new arrangement, she will pay roughly the same as her previous rent — around €500 a month, capped at 30% of her income. The deal creates a new tenancy; it does not overturn the court ruling that ended her old protected lease.
For now, the protests continue, with activists pushing politicians to adopt the proposed protections and to go further. The case has crystallised a wider anxiety across Spain — and much of Europe — that rising rents and scarce affordable housing are pushing long-standing residents out of the cities they call home. As the debate moves to parliament, the facts of Abascal's eviction are clear, but the political battle over what should replace the system that allowed it is only beginning.
