The eviction of a Madrid resident has been halted; she was targeted for removal under a sexist law from the Franco era.

MadridMaricarmen is an 87-year-old resident of the Ibiza neighborhood in Madrid, next to Retiro Park, which has become one of the most expensive areas in the Spanish capital. She had Wednesday, the 29th, circled in red on her calendar: after 70 years living in the same house, a court was planning to evict her. Hours earlier, however, the Madrid Tenants' Union announced the judge's decision to halt the eviction due to the lack of alternative housing. "Neighborhood pressure has succeeded in suspending the eviction," the union celebrated Tuesday night in a statement. Although it is a temporary suspension, it provides a small lifeline for a resident who feared being evicted from her family home overnight because of a sexist law from the Franco regime. "We cannot allow speculators to throw us out of our homes. It's not fair," Maricarmen denounced on social media.

Let's take it step by step. Maricarmen's father signed the lease for the apartment in 1956. When he died, the lease was transferred to his wife, Maricarmen's mother, who continued living in the apartment with her daughter until her death in 2005. It was then that Maricarmen inherited the lease, adjusted for inflation (CPI) and the addition of some extra expenses.

Between 1950 and 1985, Spanish law stipulated that leases were for life and could be inherited by the spouse and descendants living in the home. But in 1985, the so-called Boyer Decree ended this provision, which only applied to leases prior to that date. Since then, these leases have been known as old-rent contracts. But Maricarmen's case is special because it is considered that the lease was already transferred when her father died and her mother inherited it.

The problem, according to the Landlords' Union, is that the fine print of Franco's law prevented her mother from signing the contract because, as a woman, she couldn't be listed as the tenant (women weren't granted the same rights as men). If the contract had been signed today, both the father and mother would be the original tenants, and Maricarmen would be a first-time tenant, so the original terms should remain the same.

In this context, the investment fund Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL is proposing a rent increase of up to 2,650 euros, which would triple Maricarmen's current rent of 500 euros. "When they sent me the letter, I felt humiliated," says this Madrid resident, who receives a pension of 1,450 euros a month. "I refuse to leave. I'm going to fight," she declared in recent days. In 2018, the family that owned the building sold the entire property to Renta Corporación, one of the largest real estate groups in Spain. They then offered Maricarmen the opportunity to buy her apartment, but she couldn't afford the asking price. It was at this point that the investment fund entered the picture, and with it, the problems. This Tuesday, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, stated to the media that he was "unaware" that Maricarmen had requested assistance from social services and, therefore, that the possibility of alternative housing had been activated. However, the Tenants' Union, as well as Maricarmen herself, maintain that "the only solution is for Maricarmen to stay in her home."