Madrid's tenants' union reaches agreement with property owners so Maricarmen can return home

After more than four hours of talks, the parties have reached an agreement for Maricarmen Abascal to return to what was her home. The 20-point agreement sets out the extension of the contract for eight years, with rent between 450 and 500 euros a month, which is what Maricarmen has been paying until now.

This amount is 30 per cent of her pension and/or net income: around 1,400 euros a month. To date, of the 450 euros in rent, around 200 euros strictly corresponded to the original rent, while the remainder covered service charges, water and heating. Urbagestión was demanding 1,650 euros a month before the eviction was enforced by court order.

The agreement, pending Maricarmen's approval, was widely celebrated by the hundreds of people camping in the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid. Nevertheless, their plan is to remain there until there is further news regarding the new royal decree-law on housing.

The meeting between the estate agency's management and representatives of Maricarmen, namely her solicitor, Beatriz Duro, and the spokesperson for the Sindicato de Inquilinas tenants' union, Valeria Racu, took place with the mediation of the municipal housing and land company and Madrid's municipal Social Services (EMVS).

The local authority offered to act as an intermediary after Urbagestión made an "urgent" contact with EMVS last Friday to include Maricarmen's flat in the Reviva programme, with the aim of enabling her to return to what had been her home for seven decades.

The agreement the parties reached, with Madrid city council acting as an intermediary, marks the end of a litany of proposals which, according to the tenants' union, were put forward to the property company as the date of Maricarmen's eviction drew nearer. All of them were rejected.

Both the Ministry of Housing and the public company Casa 47 claimed to have made offers to purchase the property and prevent the elderly woman's eviction. While the property manager stated that both institutions "could not legally do so", Urbagestión acknowledged that the public company had formalised a joint offer with Maricarmen, under which the rent would amount to 900 euros.

Faced with this option, the owners stated that they could not accept it because the document was submitted "without specifying the legal framework of the contract, the payment of expenses or the other legally required conditions for its implementation".

In the same vein, pianist James Rhodes sent two emails in which he offered either to cover the rent or buy the flat, without specifying an amount. However, as the real estate agency stated in last Friday's press release, "by the time the emails arrived, the decision to put the flat forward to the Reviva programme had already been taken".

It appears that, following the preliminary agreement, tensions have begun to ease, after years of legal battles that had ultimately ruled in favour of the property manager.

According to Maricarmen's solicitor, after purchasing the building, the developer offered the elderly woman the option to stay, increasing the rent to 2,650. After taking into account the particular circumstances of the elderly woman, the company reduced that rent by between 40 per cent and 50 per cent below market price, settling at 1,650 euros, "something Maricarmen could not afford".

Urbagestión denied ever having asked for 2,650 euros.

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