After protests, Spain stops evictions of vulnerable people until 2030 and extends expiring rents

Spain has decided to suspend evictions for vulnerable people until 2030 and to extend for 2 years rental contracts expiring before 31 December 2028. The official announcement came from Health Minister Monica Garcia Gomez, who explained how this package of extraordinary measures was created to offer concrete relief to over 5 million people.

The executive led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez immediately called for an extraordinary session of the Congress of Deputies for Friday, with the aim of obtaining timely validation of the two law decrees just approved by the Council of Ministers. This radical decision aims to overturn the dynamics of an increasingly difficult real estate market, introducing rigid limits against high rents and guaranteeing solid protection to those who find themselves in economic difficulty.

The thrust of the protests and the case of Maricarmen

The decisive push for the approval of these measures came from the squares and strong popular mobilisations, including the spontaneous encampments set up in the famous Puerta del Sol in Madrid. The fuse that ignited the public debate was the shock eviction of the eighty-seven-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, a partially disabled elderly woman who had lived in the same apartment in the Retiro neighborhood since 1956. Carried away on a stretcher by the police amid general indignation, her story profoundly shook Spanish public opinion.

Fortunately, the story had a positive epilogue thanks to an agreement with the real estate company, which brought the rent back to an affordable rent of 500 euros, allowing the elderly woman to return to her historic home. In the wake of this collective indignation, the government has decided to intervene structurally, including in the decrees not only a stop to evictions and the extension of leases, but also an absolute ban on speculative funds from purchasing homes, thus stemming the ferocious financial speculation on real estate and trying to rebalance the fragile relationship between citizens’ rights and the logic of the real estate market.