An 87-year-old woman is evicted from her Madrid home, protesters take to the streets and the Spanish government responds with two controversial housing decrees. Yet behind the images that have captured the nation lies a far more complicated story: a tenancy dating back seven decades, a final court ruling, conflicting accounts of failed negotiations and a property company that says it has received death threats, live cockroaches through the post and a barrage of personal and digital attacks. As Maricarmen prepares to return home under a new agreement, another question emerges: why has her case attracted such exceptional support when so many others are struggling to find affordable housing?
Spain Expat Press Editorial Team
The images have become familiar across Spain: an elderly woman in a wheelchair, demonstrators gathering outside a Madrid apartment building and police enforcing a court-ordered eviction.
Within days, protesters were camping in the capital’s Puerta del Sol. The Spanish government approved two emergency housing decrees, and María del Carmen Abascal — known throughout the country simply as Maricarmen — became the face of a national confrontation over tenants’ rights, private property and Spain’s increasingly strained housing market.
At first glance, the story appeared straightforward. An 87-year-old woman had lost the home in which she had lived for some 70 years after a property company sought to terminate her tenancy.
But as the controversy has unfolded, other voices have begun to emerge.
Who exactly owns the property? Why did the courts ultimately rule in favour of eviction? What alternative accommodation was offered? And what has happened to the people behind the company now at the centre of a nationwide campaign?
The answers reveal a dispute considerably more complex than the television images might suggest — one in which legal facts, personal circumstances, commercial interests and political messaging have become increasingly entangled.
Urbagestión: A vulture fund or a family business?
Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión S.L., the company that owns Maricarmen’s former flat in Madrid’s Retiro district, has repeatedly been described in public commentary as a fondo buitre — the Spanish term for a vulture fund.
The company firmly rejects that description.
According to its owners, Urbagestión is a family-run Spanish business whose directly owned residential property portfolio consists of the apartment at the centre of the dispute.
The two businessmen associated with the company, Ricardo Alonso Fernández and Fernando Alonso Fuentes, dispute the suggestion that Maricarmen has been the victim of an internationally operating investment fund.
There is, however, an important distinction to be made.
Investigations by Cadena SER and El País have described other property transactions and investments connected to the company’s wider business interests. The assertion that Urbagestión owns only one residential property should therefore not be interpreted as meaning that its commercial activities are confined exclusively to that flat.
The owners do not deny purchasing the apartment as an investment. What they contest is the public characterisation of their company as a vulture fund simply because it sought to enforce its property rights.
Urbagestión has also initiated legal action over statements made by the Madrid tenants’ organisation, seeking €10,000 in compensation.
A tenancy dating back to 1956 — and the significance of 2007
The legal history of the case begins long before Urbagestión acquired the property.
Maricarmen had lived in the apartment since 1956. The original tenancy agreement was signed by her father and subsequently passed to her mother following his death.
When her mother died in 2005, Maricarmen inherited the tenancy through a further legal succession, known in Spain as subrogación.
This became the central issue in the subsequent legal proceedings.
Spain’s 1994 Urban Tenancies Act introduced restrictions on the extent to which historic rental contracts could continue to pass between generations of the same family.
Certain exceptions apply to people with a legally recognised disability of at least 65%. According to the information made public during the dispute, Maricarmen has a recognised disability rating of 50%.
Urbagestión consequently argued that her entitlement to continue the original tenancy should have expired in 2007.
The company purchased the apartment in 2018 for approximately €240,000 and subsequently challenged the continuation of the historic agreement through the courts.
Maricarmen initially secured a favourable ruling. However, the company prevailed during the subsequent appeals process, with Spain’s Supreme Court ultimately confirming the legal interpretation in Urbagestión’s favour.
The eviction carried out on 23 September was therefore based on a final and enforceable judicial decision.
The owners maintain that Maricarmen had lacked sufficient legal grounds to continue the historic tenancy since 2007.
There is, nevertheless, an important qualification: the previous landlord had initially accepted the continuation of the arrangement. Describing the entire period from 2007 onwards as illegal occupation would therefore oversimplify the legal circumstances.
What is established is that the dispute was ultimately resolved by the courts in favour of the property owner.
€204 in basic rent — and the disputed €2,650 email
Few aspects of the controversy have generated as much confusion as the actual rent paid by Maricarmen.
According to figures cited by the property owners, her monthly basic rent was €204, with approximately €200 in additional charges.
This brought her total monthly housing costs to roughly €400, although some media reports have placed the overall figure closer to €500.
For an apartment in Madrid’s sought-after Retiro district, it was an unusually favourable arrangement, reflecting the particular protections attached to historic rental contracts.
Another figure, however, has dominated much of the public debate: €2,650.
Several accounts gave the impression that Urbagestión had demanded that Maricarmen begin paying €2,650 a month to remain in her home.
The company has since challenged that interpretation.
According to its explanation, the amount appeared in an email as an indication of the apartment’s estimated market rental value at the time. Urbagestión insists that it was neither a formal demand for payment nor an ultimatum.
The owners maintain that the same correspondence also expressed their willingness to discuss a possible solution with Maricarmen.
They have referred to written communications in support of their account. The complete original correspondence, and the context in which it was exchanged, remain important to any definitive independent assessment.
Other possible rental arrangements were also reportedly discussed, including a figure of €1,650 at one stage.
The distinction matters: referring to a property’s market rental value is not necessarily the same as demanding that a tenant pay that amount.
Cockroaches through the post, death threats and disrupted computer systems
While Maricarmen became a national symbol of the tenants’ movement, the owners say the public campaign against their company developed into an increasingly threatening ordeal.
Ricardo Alonso has spoken about the situation publicly, including during an appearance on the Spanish television programme Horizonte.
According to the businessmen, Urbagestión has received extensive abuse and threats, with employees and family members also becoming targets.
Among the most disturbing allegations is that live cockroaches were sent to the company through the post.
Management has also described what it considers a sustained campaign of telephone and digital harassment, including:
- Thousands of abusive and threatening messages.
- Overwhelmed email inboxes and periods of disruption to computer systems.
- Attacks targeting the company’s online presence.
- Persistent nuisance telephone calls.
- A flood of negative online reviews.
- Alleged intimidation directed at employees and their relatives.
The company says these incidents have, at times, significantly interfered with its normal business operations.
Not every allegation has been independently verified. Nevertheless, the owners have made the claims publicly and appealed for the harassment of their employees and families to stop.
Urbagestión also says it is examining further legal action against those it considers responsible.
What began as a civil dispute over the validity of a tenancy agreement has consequently developed into a much wider confrontation, one that the company says has extended into the private lives of those associated with it.
Public anger over an eviction is one matter. Threats, intimidation and personal harassment are another.
The previous landlords have their own account
Another perspective comes from the family that owned the apartment before Urbagestión.
According to their account, relations with Maricarmen had been difficult for many years. Such allegations must be treated as the subjective experiences of those involved. They do not, in themselves, establish a definitive assessment of Maricarmen’s character or financial circumstances.
They say they continued to accept the favourable historic tenancy for a considerable period before eventually selling the property with the existing rental arrangement attached.
Nevertheless, the previous owners’ perspective forms part of the history of a dispute that has frequently been presented to the public almost exclusively through the images recorded on eviction day.
Was Maricarmen really left without any alternative?
One of the most emotionally charged claims surrounding the eviction was that the 87-year-old would be left literally homeless.
In fact, according to reporting by EFE Verifica, several alternative accommodation options had been made available before the eviction was enforced.
These included a permanent place in a residential care home in Alcalá de Henares.
On the day of the eviction, Madrid’s Samur Social emergency service also offered temporary accommodation in the Pacífico neighbourhood.
According to Maricarmen’s lawyer, she declined these options because she did not wish to move into a residential care home.
That is an important distinction from suggesting that no alternative accommodation whatsoever was available.
Her legal representatives, however, argue that a place in a care home cannot automatically be regarded as a suitable substitute for independent living.
For someone who has spent almost her entire life in the same apartment, they maintain, her personal circumstances, independence and established social environment must also be taken into account.
The accommodation offers existed. Maricarmen’s decision not to accept them is part of the story, as is her determination to remain in the home she had known for decades.
Who prevented an agreement?
The parties continue to offer conflicting accounts of the negotiations that preceded the eviction.
Urbagestión has accused the Sindicato de Inquilinas, the tenants’ organisation involved in supporting Maricarmen, of making an earlier settlement more difficult.
The organisation and Maricarmen’s lawyer firmly reject that account.
They maintain that several possible solutions were proposed, including arrangements under which third parties would contribute towards a higher rent, as well as a potential purchase of the apartment.
The British-Spanish pianist James Rhodes also publicly stated that he had offered his assistance.
The property owners, meanwhile, insist that they had remained open to discussions and that the public portrayal of their conduct does not accurately reflect the correspondence between the parties.
Without access to the complete communications, it is difficult to establish conclusively which proposals were formally made, when they were presented and precisely why they failed.
What is clear is that positions hardened over several years until the court-ordered eviction was finally carried out.
A political symbol — and the question of responsibility
The Maricarmen affair has long since moved beyond the original tenancy dispute.
Spain’s housing minister, Isabel Rodríguez, and other representatives of the left-wing governing parties have publicly criticised the owners’ conduct.
Urbagestión argues that such statements have contributed to the stigmatisation of the company.
The tenants’ movement, by contrast, regards Maricarmen’s experience as evidence of the need for stronger statutory protection for renters.
Yet several distinct questions have increasingly become blurred.
The vulnerability of an elderly tenant does not automatically establish an indefinite entitlement to occupy a particular privately owned property.
Equally, a final court judgment does not, by itself, resolve every social question arising from the loss of a longstanding home.
The controversy illustrates the difficulty of maintaining a measured discussion about property rights and tenant protection once the individuals involved become symbols of a much broader political struggle.
An unexpected resolution: Maricarmen is allowed to return
On Monday 28 September, the dispute took a significant turn.
Following more than four hours of discussions involving Urbagestión, Maricarmen’s representatives and Madrid’s municipal housing company, EMVS, a new tenancy agreement was negotiated.
The Sindicato de Inquilinas also participated in the talks.
On Tuesday, Maricarmen’s lawyer, Beatriz Duro, confirmed that her client had accepted the agreement.
The new contract will run for eight years.
Under its terms, Maricarmen’s monthly rental burden is not to exceed 30% of her net income. Based on the figures reported so far, the payment is expected to be in the region of €500.
The arrangement has been facilitated by Madrid’s municipal housing company and includes legal and financial safeguards for both parties, among them insurance covering rent arrears and certain forms of property damage.
Maricarmen is expected to return to her former apartment following her discharge from Madrid’s Gregorio Marañón Hospital.
Urbagestión subsequently expressed regret over the situation and thanked Madrid City Council for its role in facilitating the agreement.
For the time being, the individual dispute has therefore ended with an outcome that appeared difficult to imagine only days earlier: Maricarmen can return to the apartment, this time under a new, conventional tenancy agreement.
Why Maricarmen? And what about everyone else?
The settlement has also raised a broader question: on what basis should people facing housing difficulties receive exceptional assistance?
According to media reports, Maricarmen receives a regular pension income of approximately €1,300 a month. Her previous basic rent, according to the owners, was just €204, excluding additional charges.
Following a nationwide wave of protests, she has now secured a new eight-year agreement under which her monthly rental burden will not exceed 30% of her net income.
This raises a legitimate question about access to comparable support.
What happens to those whose personal circumstances never make the national television news?
What about pensioners living on the minimum state pension? Single parents spending a substantial proportion of their earnings on rent? Or young families who, despite having two salaries, struggle to secure an affordable home?
They, too, experience Spain’s housing shortage every day.
Yet not every individual case attracts a nationwide protest movement, the support of prominent public figures or the direct involvement of public institutions in negotiating a settlement.
Income alone, of course, does not determine whether somebody is socially vulnerable. Age, disability, personal circumstances and the consequences of losing a longstanding home are also relevant considerations.
Nevertheless, the resolution of Maricarmen’s case leaves wider questions unanswered.
What criteria govern access to such assistance? How many other people can benefit from similar mediation? And how can public institutions ensure that those whose circumstances attract less media attention are treated fairly?
Maricarmen has been given a new opportunity to return home. But how many people across Spain are still waiting for a comparable chance, without anyone occupying the Puerta del Sol on their behalf?
What remains of the Maricarmen affair?
An 87-year-old woman, a tenancy agreement dating back seven decades and a final court ruling have been enough to propel Spain into another confrontation over housing policy.
Protesters in the Puerta del Sol have called for indefinite rental contracts. The government has approved two emergency housing decrees whose parliamentary future remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, a privately owned property company has found itself at the centre of intense public criticism and what it describes as serious personal harassment.
The affair consequently raises questions extending far beyond a single apartment in Madrid.
For how long should historic tenancies be allowed to continue? What responsibility should private property owners bear for accommodating vulnerable people? What role should public housing institutions play? And where should the boundaries of legitimate protest lie when employees and family members become targets of threats and intimidation?
Maricarmen now has the prospect of returning to her home under a new agreement. A lengthy legal confrontation has given way to a negotiated settlement.
But the wider debate her case has unleashed is unlikely to end there.
