87-Year-Old Madrid Woman Evicted After 71 Years May Return Home After Massive Public Outcry

An 87-year-old Madrid woman who was removed from her longtime apartment on a stretcher after living there for 71 years may soon be allowed to return home, after her eviction triggered fury in Spain and sent thousands of protesters into the streets.

María del Carmen “Maricarmen” Abascal had lived in the same apartment in Madrid’s Retiro neighborhood since the mid-1950s, when she moved in with her family as a 17-year-old. That was before color television was common, before the Beatles invaded America, before the moon landing, and long before investment funds discovered the thrilling human sport of buying buildings and making elderly women unaffordable to themselves.

Abascal was forcibly evicted Wednesday, Sept. 23, after years of legal battles over her tenancy. Supporters gathered outside the building, but authorities removed protesters from the doorway before Abascal was taken away in an ambulance. The scene quickly became a national symbol of Spain’s housing crisis: an elderly woman carried out of the home she had occupied for seven decades while angry neighbors shouted “Shame on you.”

The backlash was immediate. Nearly 10,000 people reportedly protested in the neighborhood that night, and the case became a rallying point for Spaniards furious over rising rents, housing speculation and the growing sense that ordinary residents are being priced out of their own lives.

Now, Abascal’s lawyer says a deal has been negotiated that would allow her to return.

Attorney Beatriz Duro said Monday that she had reached an agreement with Urbagestión, the investment fund that acquired the apartment building in 2018. Under the proposed deal, Abascal would pay rent equal to 30% of her income for the next eight years, bringing her payments closer to what she had been paying before the dispute escalated.

According to reports, Abascal’s rent had once been about €500 per month, or roughly $572. After Urbagestión bought the building, the rent was increased to €2,650, or about $3,014, before later being lowered to €1,650, or around $1,877. Abascal’s monthly pension is €1,350, about $1,535.

In other words, even after the “discount,” the rent was still higher than her entire pension. A small accounting detail, perhaps, unless you are the person expected to pay rent using money you do not actually have.

Duro said there had been “goodwill from both parties” during negotiations, though she also said the agreement came “late” and after a situation “no one should ever have to endure.”

Abascal still must personally approve and sign the deal. She was unable to attend the meeting because she had been hospitalized after the eviction and was reportedly being treated for exhaustion.

The proposed agreement was greeted with cheers by protesters gathered at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where activists have set up camps to protest Spain’s housing crisis. The case has now become larger than one apartment. It has turned into a very public argument over who cities are for: longtime residents, or whoever can pay the newest price.

Abascal’s tenancy dates back to an old-style regulated rental agreement signed by her father. After he died, the tenancy passed to her mother. When her mother died in 2005, it passed to Abascal.

The courts had previously blocked three attempts to evict her. But in March, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled against her, overturning a lower-court decision that had favored Abascal in 2022. After several postponements, the eviction finally went ahead last week.

Madrid officials said Abascal had been offered alternative housing, including a place in a residential facility. Abascal rejected those options and said she would rather stay with relatives than be placed somewhere she did not want to live.

On Friday, Sept. 25, Madrid’s City Council rejected an emergency proposal from Urbagestión that would have placed the apartment into a social housing program and allowed Abascal to return. The council said the property did not meet legal requirements.

That left negotiations between Abascal’s lawyer and the company as the apparent path forward.

If finalized, the deal would return Abascal to the home she left under circumstances that enraged much of the country. It would not, however, solve the broader problem that made her case explode in the first place.

Spain, like many countries, is struggling with soaring housing costs, investment ownership, short-term rentals, stagnant wages and neighborhoods where residents increasingly feel like temporary obstacles to someone else’s profit margin.

Abascal’s case landed so hard because it was easy to understand. No spreadsheet was required. An 87-year-old woman who had lived in one place for 71 years was carried out after rent demands climbed beyond her pension. The public saw it and revolted.

Now, after protests, public pressure and national embarrassment, she may be going home.

It is a happy ending of sorts, assuming the agreement is signed. But it is also a strange one. Apparently, in modern housing politics, it can take a stretcher, an ambulance, 10,000 angry people and international headlines to arrive at the radical conclusion that an 87-year-old woman should be allowed to live in the apartment she has called home since she was a teenager.