Spain protests: Evicted 87-year-old woman to return to Madrid home

An international real estate investor that acquired the building where 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal lived has agreed to roll back her rent and allow her to return to her Madrid flat, her legal representative said. The firm offered to cap her monthly payments at roughly $570 for the next eight years, a level reported to be about 30% of her pension. The agreement ends a dispute that escalated after the investor raised her rent to about $1,880 a month.

Abascal had become a focal point in mounting public concern over housing in Spain after the rent increase was seen as an attempt to push out a long-term resident to convert the unit into more lucrative tourist accommodation. Madrid’s tenants’ union organised large demonstrations and encampments in the central Puerta del Sol square; the protests attracted tens of thousands of people and spread to many other cities across the country.

Tenant advocates hailed the landlord’s offer as a significant victory. The union described the outcome as a "historic win" on social media platform X. The dispute also prompted a political response: the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez moved a package of tenant-protection measures to a parliamentary vote, including an extension of expired safeguards through 2030 aimed at protecting vulnerable residents from eviction during that period.

While the government measures address some concerns, they do not fully match the protesters’ demands and could face resistance from conservative parties that tend to side with landlords’ interests. The episode occurs against a backdrop of a significant housing shortfall: Spain’s central bank estimates the country is about 755,000 homes short of demand, a gap that could expand to one million units by 2028.