The situation
Real talk: the housing market in Spain is currently a total L. After being forcibly removed on a stretcher from her apartment of over 70 years, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal is finally getting the green light to move back in. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, confirmed that a deal was struck with Urbagestión, the investment firm that owns the property. After a massive public pushback, both sides found some "goodwill" to avoid a price hike that would’ve made her place unlivable.
How we got here
Abascal’s family had been renting the flat since 1956, keeping it under a rent cap for decades. Then Urbagestión bought the building in 2018 and tried to hike her rent from €500 to €2,650 a month—on a pension of just €1,350. It’s giving classic corporate greed, no cap. After three failed attempts, they finally kicked her out on September 23, landing her in the hospital from exhaustion.
The fallout
This incident became the main character of a national conversation about Spain's housing shortage, sparking protests with up to 1,000 people gathering at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. The vibes are clearly off across the country as rents in cities like Madrid have jumped nearly 10% in the last year. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is now feeling the heat, promising housing relief measures while his cabinet scrambles to find a fix for an estimated shortage of 700,000 homes.
Why it matters
While this is a W for Abascal, housing activists are saying say less—they want permanent reforms to stop this from happening to anyone else. With inflation and rent costs soaring, the government is under serious pressure to move beyond temporary fixes and actually protect vulnerable tenants before the whole system crashes.
