On 23 September 2026, Maricarmen Abascal left her Madrid home in an ambulance after a court order was enforced. The 87-year-old had lived in a flat on Alcalde Sainz de Baranda in Madrid's Retiro district for more than seven decades. It was the fourth eviction attempt. Hundreds of people gathered outside as the legal process ran out of appeals. Reuters described the case as a striking example of Spain's housing crisis.
The eviction brought clashes between police and protesters. The Guardian reported that officers used tear gas during the demonstration outside the building.
Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión is not a major investment fund. It is a Madrid limited company founded in 2005 that also trades as Urbagesa. The company operates from Zurbano Street, has two branches in Valladolid and employs seven people.
That distinction matters. The dispute has often been framed as a clash between an elderly tenant and the kind of investor associated with large property portfolios. Urbagestión rejects that description and calls itself a small, ordinary business. Its records show a modest staff size and an active real estate business focused on income-producing properties.
Ricardo Alonso Fernández and Fernando Alonso Fuentes have been listed as owners since the company was created. Both are lawyers. Alonso Fernández has been a partner at Neutra Abogados since 2010 and presents himself as a specialist in commercial law and property, with urban planning also among his areas of expertise. Alonso Fuentes also works as an urban-planning lawyer. In 2014, he represented the claimants who persuaded Spain's Supreme Court to annul a 248-home development plan in Simancas.
In 2015, Urbagestión expanded its corporate purpose to include the purchase and sale of pharmacies, laboratories and optical businesses. The company's website described direct investment in real assets and income-producing property, including commercial premises and offices, alongside homes and land. Its portfolio description also covered buildings, industrial sites and hotels. Urbagestión said it worked closely with banks to offer assets from financial institutions.
BBC and Euronews place Urbagestión's acquisition of the property in 2018, while the property account dates the transfer of the entire building from Renta Corporación to Urbagestión to 2020.
Urbagestión acquired the building in 2020 after Renta Corporación sold the entire property to the company. Two years earlier, the family that owned the building had offered Maricarmen the chance to buy her flat for €247,000. She could not afford it.
The Tenants' Union said Renta Corporación completed the sale of the whole building to Urbagestión the day after Maricarmen refused the offer. The reported price for the flat was about €240,000. In the property sector, this is the logic behind buying a home with a tenant inside: the buyer pays less and takes on an old-rent contract.
The legal dispute began in 2020 and turned on the status of the tenancy. Urbagestión argued that the contract had been transferred twice. It said the second transfer expired after two years unless the tenant had a disability above 65%. Maricarmen's recognised disability is 50%.
A Madrid court ruled in her favour in 2022. The Provincial Court overturned that decision months later, and the Supreme Court rejected her cassation appeal in December 2023. El País reported that the reversal left the tenant without a successful ordinary appeal.
Urbagestión then offered continued occupation for €2,650 a month, the amount paid by other tenants in the building. It later cut the figure to about €1,600 to €1,650. Earlier BBC reporting said the rent had previously been about €500. Maricarmen's pension was reported at roughly €1,300 to €1,350, so even the lower proposal exceeded her monthly income.
The Ministry of Housing said Urbagestión accepted mediation but would not sell the flat and rejected every proposal. The Tenants' Union also said the company refused an offer from a writer who had volunteered to cover the difference in rent.
Reuters reported that Maricarmen's lawyer said both the court and Urbagestión representatives declined requests to suspend the eviction. Authorities were still searching for alternative accommodation. The company has made no recent public statement beyond its written defence. It says it owns no other homes and is neither an investment fund nor a vulture fund.
The financial figures add detail to that defence. Urbagestión lost nearly €136,000 in 2023 and made €165,000 in 2024 on sales above €900,000. Turnover then fell 35% in 2025 to €586,000, and its profit that year was €2,990.
Those figures describe a small firm, but they do not settle the central business decision. Urbagestión bought a building with an existing tenant and pursued possession after the courts accepted its reading of the contract.
The eviction also follows earlier reporting on Maricarmen's removal from the flat. The ownership structure brings the case into sharper focus. It shows how a small property company can buy an occupied building, rely on a disputed reading of a tenancy and set rent at the market level to gain control of a home.
Maricarmen's age, limited mobility and long history in the flat brought the case wider attention. Reuters and the BBC linked the dispute to Spain's shortage of affordable housing and the pressure on private renters. El País also covered those issues. Confrontations with police outside the building turned one possession dispute into a national political and social symbol.
Urbagestión's size matters, but it does not end the argument. Seven employees and limited profits explain why the company rejects comparisons with a major fund. Its stated investment model explains why the property was valuable to it.
The courts settled the legal appeal in the company's favour. Maricarmen still ended up outside the home where she had spent most of her life. The available facts point to a lawful property strategy with a severe human cost. This was neither a story about a giant fund nor evidence of a harmless small business.
