Spain: Protests after 87-year-old woman evicted from home by force

Thousands of people have continued to demonstrate in Madrid and other Spanish cities following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen.

In the capital, police clashed with some protesters during a demonstration organised by the Madrid Tenants’ Union. The group criticised the police response and said demonstrators would continue campaigning for the right to housing.

Protesters partially blocked the street outside a controversial luxury penthouse acquired by the Madrid regional government through the publicly owned company Planifica Madrid. They chanted slogans including “We are all Maricarmen”, “Ayuso, resign” — referring to Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso — and “The penthouse for Maricarmen”.

The demonstration, organised through social media by the Madrid Tenants’ Union, drew around 10,000 people, according to the Spanish government’s delegation in Madrid.

Protests were also called in cities including Barcelona, Seville, Ávila, Cádiz, Palma, Toledo, Valencia, Guadalajara, Málaga and Huelva, as tenants’ groups called for action to stop evictions and address Spain’s housing crisis.

Evicted after more than 70 years in her home

María del Carmen Abascal, known to everyone as Maricarmen, is no longer a resident of Retiro in central Madrid. On Wednesday, at 87 years old, she was evicted from the flat at 46 Alcalde Sainz de Baranda Street, where she had lived since 1956.

This was the fourth attempt to evict her and, this time, court officials went through with it after several postponements. Police cleared hundreds of people who had gathered in an attempt to stop the eviction.

Maricarmen’s eviction carried out at the fourth attempt

From the early hours of Wednesday morning, dozens of people had gathered around the entrance to the building, until police set up a cordon blocking access to the press and supporters. At around 10:30 am, after an hour of talks between Maricarmen’s lawyer and court officers, it was confirmed that the eviction would go ahead.

Officers then removed protesters by force, and an ambulance parked in front of the doorway, with medics entering the building with a stretcher to take the elderly woman out. According to several Spanish media outlets, activists tried to block the eviction in the street, on the stairwell and inside the flat itself. They were removed by police.

Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, made one final attempt at negotiation, asking for a few days so that Maricarmen could find somewhere to live. The company refused to grant any leeway. “They refused to give her a few hours to remove her belongings,” the lawyer complained.

An old-style regulated tenancy signed in 1956

The roots of the dispute go back almost 70 years. The old-style regulated tenancy was signed by Maricarmen’s parents in 1956, with her father as the tenant. After his death, it passed to his wife and, when she died in 2005, there was a second succession in favour of Maricarmen.

The property had belonged to a private family for decades, but it was sold in 2018 and ended up in the hands of Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión S.L., a property company based in Madrid and Valladolid that invests in buildings, homes, land, commercial premises, offices and hotels.

The company argued that the second succession was invalid and that the contract had lapsed. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the owners in March, overturning a first-instance ruling that had backed Maricarmen.

Maricarmen receives a pension lower than the €2,500 monthly rent demanded by the company, several times higher than her previous rent. Maricarmen, who has a disability, was never able to afford that amount.

Urbagestión is also claiming €10,000 from the Madrid Tenants’ Union for damages arising from the campaign in support of Maricarmen.

The first eviction attempt was in October 2025 and was halted by the court the day before. There was another attempt on 2 June this year, which was also postponed at the last minute.

The UN called for it to be halted

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called on the Spanish government to stop the eviction and ensure that Maricarmen had access to adequate housing. The request, made in June, was not enough to prevent the eviction.

In Spain’s Congress, Socialist spokesperson Patxi López defended the government’s actions and shifted responsibility to Madrid City Council and the regional government, which are responsible for housing, noting that the owners had rejected every offer to buy the flat.

Maricarmen is now leaving the home where she had lived since she was 17 and where her parents died. The case brings to a close, as far as the flat is concerned, a years-long legal battle that made her one of the most recognisable faces of Madrid’s housing crisis.

Madrid City Council has sought to defuse the controversy sparked by the eviction, insisting that it had already offered Maricarmen various housing options on previous occasions and during earlier attempts to carry out the eviction.

The city’s mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida also stressed that municipal services had contacted her beforehand. He avoided giving further details out of respect for her privacy.

The City Hall housing department maintains that Maricarmen explicitly rejected every accommodation option offered to her. The same situation was repeated on Wednesday after the eviction, when Samur Social again offered her a place in a residential facility. She declined and ultimately chose to move in with relatives.