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Riot police deployed tear gas and batons to clear hundreds of protesters who had gathered overnight outside the Retiro district building, allowing a judicial commission to carry out the eviction order against Maricarmen on Wednesday morning, according to reports from The Guardian and laSexta. The woman, who has a recognised 50 percent disability and uses a wheelchair, was removed from the premises on a stretcher by emergency medical staff and transferred to Gregorio Marañón Hospital, witnesses told Spanish media outlets. A spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union described the operation as disproportionate, noting that this marked the fourth attempt to remove her from the flat where she had resided since her father first rented it in 1956. The union had proposed that an anonymous donor cover the difference between her pension and the new rent, yet the owner rejected the arrangement and proceeded with enforcement.
The investment firm Urbagestión, which purchased the property in 2018, had initially sought to raise the monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros before settling on 1,650 euros, a sum that exceeded Maricarmen’s 1,350-euro pension, BBC News reported. Three prior eviction attempts were halted by court rulings, and the case drew intervention from the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which in June called for the action to be suspended and for authorities to provide affordable alternative housing. Maricarmen told reporters the night before the eviction that she had lived in the apartment for 71 years and did not want to leave, according to coverage by El País. The firm had earlier offered her the chance to buy the unit for 247,000 euros, an amount far beyond her means.
Spain recorded 4,005 evictions linked to non-payment of rent or mortgages in the first quarter of 2026, a 45.4 percent decline from the same period a year earlier, according to figures released by the Consejo General del Poder Judicial. Catalonia accounted for 921 of those cases, representing 23 percent of the national total, with the Valencian Community and Andalusia following at 741 and 616 respectively. The data reflect a broader pattern in which judicial launches have eased temporarily but remain elevated in urban centres facing acute supply shortages. Separate statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística show that executions of mortgages on primary residences climbed to 3,703 in the second quarter, the highest level in more than nine years.
Projections for Barcelona indicate that completed evictions could reach around 2,000 by the end of 2026, up from 1,373 in 2025, according to municipal tender documents cited by El Debate. The city was already accommodating 3,307 people from 1,100 families in emergency temporary lodging such as pensions and hostels as of April, a 12.1 percent increase from two years earlier, El Periódico reported, with nearly 87 percent of those households including minors. Much of the pressure stems from the expiration of pandemic-era protections against evictions for vulnerable groups, a moratorium that parliament declined to extend in February with votes from the People’s Party, Vox and Junts per Catalunya. Rental stock has meanwhile contracted sharply in regulated zones, with Barcelona alone losing nearly 50,000 units over three years, data from the Observatorio del Alquiler show.
The episode has triggered fresh political recriminations, with Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez García describing the day as very dramatic and attributing the outcome to unchecked speculation and insufficient regulation at the regional level, as reported by Russpain. The Madrid regional government led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso has faced criticism for resisting tighter rental controls that advocates say could have prevented such cases. Tenant organisations have repeatedly proposed public acquisition of the property or legislative reforms to strengthen protections for long-term residents on old contracts, yet they report receiving no substantive response from institutions. Maricarmen’s situation illustrates how legacy rental agreements from the pre-1985 era, which cap increases and guarantee indefinite tenure, increasingly clash with investor expectations in a market where average prices continue to rise.
National mortgage execution data for the second quarter placed Andalusia, Catalonia and the Valencian Community as accounting for 59.1 percent of all residential cases, according to an analysis by The Objective drawing on Instituto Nacional de Estadística returns. Many of the affected loans originated between 2005 and 2008, the peak years of the property bubble that later contributed to Spain’s financial crisis. While not every execution results in an immediate physical eviction, the upward trend has coincided with reduced supply in the private rental sector following the introduction of rent caps in designated stressed areas. Barcelona’s average price per square metre stood at 5,375 euros in August, 4.2 percent higher than a year before, with certain districts registering even steeper gains, municipal statistics indicate.
