Just two days after 87-year-old Maricarmen was evicted from the Madrid flat where she had lived for more than 70 years, the case has taken an unexpected turn. The property company Urbagestión has proposed placing the flat in Madrid City Council’s ReViVa scheme, potentially allowing her to return. But nothing has yet been agreed – and Maricarmen’s lawyers say they have not been informed of any concrete proposal.
Spain Expat Press Editorial Team
The case of Maricarmen, which has dominated headlines and triggered fierce debate across Spanish social media, has taken another remarkable turn.
Urbagestión, the company that owns the property in Madrid’s Retiro district from which the 87-year-old was evicted on Wednesday, says it has proposed incorporating the flat into the City Council’s ReViVa programme.
The stated aim is to create a route by which Maricarmen could potentially return to the home where she spent more than seven decades of her life.
There is, however, an important caveat: there is currently no agreement and her return has not been confirmed.Maricarmen’s lawyers say they have not yet been informed of any concrete offer.
For now, therefore, this remains a proposal made by the property owner to Madrid City Council.
What exactly is Urbagestión proposing?
ReViVa, operated by Madrid’s municipal housing company EMVS, is designed to bring privately owned homes into the affordable rental market.
Owners retain ownership of their properties while making them available through the municipal scheme for an agreed period. In return, they receive rent under conditions established by the programme.
In other words, Urbagestión is neither giving nor selling the flat to Madrid City Council.
Instead, the council, through EMVS, could effectively become an intermediary.
And that may prove significant.
After years in which Maricarmen and the property owner failed to reach an agreement, the involvement of Madrid City Council could provide an entirely different framework for negotiations – potentially offering conditions acceptable to both sides.
Urbagestión insists: ‘We are not an investment fund’
The company has also sought to challenge a description of its business that has repeatedly appeared during the controversy.
According to Urbagestión, it is not an investment fund or so-called “vulture fund”, but a family-run company.
The company also says Maricarmen’s flat is the only residential property in its portfolio and that it acquired the property only a few years ago.
Urbagestión disputes claims that it simply refused to negotiate. According to the company, attempts to reach an arrangement with Maricarmen and her representatives failed to produce a solution acceptable to both sides.
There are also conflicting accounts of the mediation attempts made in recent weeks.
Urbagestión says neither Spain’s Housing Ministry nor the state housing company Casa 47 submitted a formal written offer to purchase the property. It says discussions only included a verbal proposal under which rent of up to €900 a month could have been shared between Casa 47 and Maricarmen.
That is Urbagestión’s account. Maricarmen’s representatives and the Sindicato de Inquilinas tenants’ union have presented aspects of the negotiations differently.
Urbagestión has, for its part, accused the tenants’ union of exerting disproportionate pressure and making misleading and insulting claims, arguing that the atmosphere surrounding the dispute made an agreement more difficult.
Why the change of course now?
That question remains unanswered.
Urbagestión has not said whether any particular factor prompted it to propose the ReViVa option at this stage.
The timing is nevertheless striking.
The eviction attracted enormous public and media attention across Spain. Images of the 87-year-old leaving her home on a stretcher circulated widely in the press and on social media, while large numbers of protesters gathered outside the building in an attempt to prevent the eviction.
Pressure on the company had already become intense before the final eviction. According to media reports, Urbagestión received around 1,500 emails in a single day as part of a campaign calling for the eviction to be halted.
The case subsequently prompted another flood of criticism and commentary online.
Whether that public pressure and the extraordinary media attention influenced Urbagestión’s latest decision is not known. It is one possible explanation for the sudden change of approach, but there is currently no evidence establishing that as the reason.
And social media is erupting again
No sooner had the proposal emerged than another argument began.
While many have welcomed the possibility that an 87-year-old woman might be able to return to her lifelong home, others are asking a very different question:
Why should public authorities now become involved after the previous tenancy ended and the eviction was carried out?
Some social media users are questioning whether taxpayers could ultimately bear part of the cost of enabling Maricarmen to return to the same property.
Others argue that affordable housing programmes such as ReViVa exist precisely to provide solutions in difficult housing situations while simultaneously offering private landlords greater security.
There is, however, one crucial point.
We do not yet know what the financial terms of any agreement involving Maricarmen would actually be.
It is not known how much rent Urbagestión would receive, how much Maricarmen herself would pay or what financial commitment, if any, would ultimately fall on the public authorities.
It would therefore be premature to claim that taxpayers are going to pay for Maricarmen’s home.
An ending few would have predicted
In the space of only a few days, the Maricarmen case has generated several very different debates.
First came the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from the flat in which she had spent more than seven decades. That was followed by intense criticism of the property owner, demonstrations and a wider national discussion about tenancy law and the protection of elderly people.
Now the argument is shifting again.
The question is increasingly whether the public authorities should intervene, under what conditions they should do so and who would ultimately bear what proportion of the cost.
The key question is therefore no longer whether Maricarmen is returning home – because that has not been decided – but whether this unexpected proposal can actually be turned into an agreement.
If it can, the outcome could potentially offer something to both sides: Urbagestión would have an institutional intermediary and clearly regulated rental arrangements, while Maricarmen could spend her remaining years back in the home where she has lived for more than 70 years.
After weeks of bitter confrontation, that would be a remarkable turn of events.
But we are not there yet.
And one question is likely to dominate the debate in the coming days:
Who, ultimately, would pay how much?
