Dramatic footage shows Spanish riot police forcing their way into an 87-year-old woman’s Madrid flat after supporters piled furniture against the door to stop her eviction.
Maricarmen Abascal was forcibly evicted from her home of 70 years on Wednesday after an investment firm hiked her rent by 275 per cent sparking furious protests across Spain.
In video captured inside the apartment police are seen crashing through a barricade of chairs shelves and a lamp to carry out the court-ordered eviction as the bewildered pensioner watched on.
A cutting sound can be heard before the door gives way and the furniture begins to topple. Maricarmen was inside with her cousin Vicente, her niece and members of the Tenants’ Union.
She was removed from the property despite pleas from her supporters as violent clashes broke out outside her apartment in the upmarket area of Retiro in central Madrid.
Supporters say she was given just 30 minutes to gather her belongings before health workers took her away in an ambulance.
The eviction sparked violent clashes between police and demonstrators who had gathered outside the building to try to stop it.
The firm behind the legal action, Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL, is run by investment brothers Ricardo Alonso Fernández and Fernando Alonso Fuentes. It bought Maricarmen’s apartment in 2018.
Dramatic footage shows Spanish riot police forcing their way into an 87-year-old woman’s Madrid flat after supporters piled furniture against the door to stop her eviction
Maricarmen was inside with her cousin Vicente, her niece and members of the Tenants’ Union
Pictured: A barricade against the door of Maricarmen’s flat, assembled to delay riot cops from entering the apartment
Pictured: Activists tried to prevent the eviction as riot police forced their way into the property
Maricarmen waits at home to see whether her eviction will go ahead or be prevented, on 23 September, 2026
Pictured: Police confront demonstrators during a protest in Madrid following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen
She had been paying around €440 a month under an old tenancy agreement. The firm later proposed a rent of €1,650 a month, a rise of 275 per cent, according to Spanish reports.
Maricarmen’s lawyer claims the owners had not spoken directly to her once in the eight years since the purchase.
Both brothers are lawyers and have been administrators of Urbagestión since it was founded in 2005.
The firm paid around €240,000 for Maricarmen’s apartment, according to reports.
The men are also linked to more than a dozen other companies, including businesses in property, construction and pharmacy sector advisory services.
British pianist James Rhodes later revealed that he had contacted Urbagestión and offered to pay Maricarmen’s rent or buy the apartment so she could remain there. He said the firm rejected both proposals.
Police carried out the court-ordered eviction, while health workers took Maricarmen from the building as protesters chanted, ‘Maricarmen, you are not alone.’
The legal battle reached the Supreme Court which ruled in favour of the firm, clearing the way for the eviction, the the Madrid renters’ union said.
Police officers charged and dragged away dozens of activists who had camped outside Maricarmen’s building to try to stop the eviction, to cries of ‘shame!’ from protesters.
After leaving the building, she was taken to the Gregorio Marañón Hospital. She refused the free emergency placement offered by the city and, at least temporarily, is supposed to be staying with a relative.
Amnesty International Spain slammed ‘a violation of human rights’ and ‘a system that puts the speculative interests of a vulture fund before Maricarmen’s right to stay in her house’.
‘It isn’t an isolated case, it is just another portrayal of the suffering that thousands of households go through in Spain,’ Amnesty said in a statement.
In an interview with public broadcaster RTVE recorded on Tuesday, Maricarmen called the company ‘inhuman, and all in order to make money’.
‘You cannot make a person live for seven years with a machete hanging over their neck,’ she said, blaming the national, regional and city authorities for her plight.
Maricarmen Abascal was carried from the building on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance as demonstrators chanted: ‘Maricarmen, you are not alone’
Maricarmen was forcibly evicted from home of 70 years on Wednesday after an investment firm hiked her rent by 275 per cent sparking furious riots across Spain
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Madrid as an 87-year-old woman was evicted from the apartment she had called home for 70 years
Housing activists react, after Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was taken away on a stretcher to an ambulance
Spanish riot police removes one of the activits, who were trying to prevent the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal
Police remove a member of the Madrid Tenants’ Union from forming a barricade in front of the access to the building
Socialist Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez insisted the minority Leftist government had repeatedly tried to pass a law to ban such evictions and accused the conservative-run Madrid region of ‘rolling out the red carpet for these speculators’.
Housing has for years been a top concern for Spaniards as supply falls short of demand, with rents and purchasing prices soaring relentlessly as elsewhere in the European Union.
Residents in the world’s second-most visited country blame short-term tourist rentals such as Airbnb for driving up prices and cutting supply, sparking protests in hotspots including Barcelona.
‘I’m leaving Madrid, because Madrid isn’t Madrid. And the people of Madrid are no longer Madrilenos. They are all the tourists that you have in Gran Via,’ Maricarmen told RTVE, referring to the Spanish capital’s main commercial thoroughfare.
Earlier this year, it emerged that more than 100,000 half-finished homes currently lie empty in Spain, after locals spent years complaining that they had nowhere to live.
Data from Spain’s Ministry of Housing indicates that this vast array of unfinished homes is only a portion of those in the country.
The government’s report into the issue only tracked developments that were meant to host at least 1,000 homes and had building levels of less than 70 per cent.
On top of this, there is enough developed land with streetlights and roads – but no homes – in Spain for 390,000 homes.
Many of these developments exist in an eerie state of limbo as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, with many housebuilders defaulting on loans and declaring bankruptcy, unable to pay their loans back.
And since then, the country’s property development market has come to something of a standstill. The Bank of Spain estimates that there is currently a shortage of almost 700,000 homes.
Because of this, demand for homes has surged, and Spanish residents have increasingly felt priced out of their communities. In the last few years, they have taken out much of their anger on tourists and non-residents who buy up homes in holiday hotspots.
Riots and protests have blighted many of Spain’s biggest tourist cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and Mallorca’s Palma.
And in many parts of the country, legislation about banning Britons from buying property is being debated.
