00:03Welcome to The Cube, Euronews' fact-checking show.
00:06Spain is seeing mass protest after an 87-year-old woman named Mari Carmen Abascal
00:11was evicted from her long-time home in Madrid,
00:13and a wave of conflicting claims about the nature of the demonstrations has spread online.
00:18Mari Carmen had lived in the same flat since 1956.
00:21She paid reduced rent under an old rent-protected contract
00:24originally signed by her father and later inherited by her mother.
00:27The legal dispute is whether that second transfer of the rent-protected tenancy
00:31could continue indefinitely.
00:33Spain's Supreme Court ultimately ruled that it could not.
00:36Under the applicable rules, the second transfer lasted only two years
00:40unless the tenant had a recognised disability above 65%.
00:43Mari Carmen's recognised disability was 50%.
00:47She was evicted on the 23rd of September after several previous attempts to remove her had been postponed.
00:52So contrary to what many online posts claim, the eviction was not illegal.
00:56It was authorised by the courts after a years-long legal dispute.
01:00The controversy is instead about whether the law is actually fair.
01:04Mari Carmen's previous rent was about €500 a month,
01:07but after the protected contract ended,
01:09the owner had proposed a new rent of up to €1,650,
01:13well above Mari Carmen's €1,350 pension.
01:16It's also misleading to assume demonstrators are solely protesting against Mari Carmen's eviction.
01:21It has indeed become a symbol of Spain's housing crisis, particularly rising rents and insecurity for tenants.
01:27But what protesters are actually calling for are measures including stronger eviction protections,
01:32rent freezes or controls, automatic renewal of some rental contracts and restrictions on large property investors.
01:38Demonstrations continued even after an agreement was reached for Mari Carmen to return home,
01:42because organisers say the demands are about housing policy generally, not just her case.
01:47Spain's national government has already proposed new housing measures following the protests,
01:52including extending protections against some evictions and changing rental rules.
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