MADRID, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Spain's coalition government said it had agreed proposals including banning evictions until 2030 to address the country's housing crisis, as the 87-year-old woman whose forced removal last week triggered protests was considering an offer to return home.
Hundreds of people remained camped in one of Madrid's main squares on Tuesday to protest Maricarmen Abascal's removal from her home on a stretcher last Wednesday. They are demanding legal reforms including a rent freeze and the automatic renewal of leases without abusive rent hikes.
Health Minister Monica Garcia said the ruling Socialists reached an agreement with junior partners Sumar on Tuesday for a decree with new measures including rolling over contracts until 2028 and banning so-called vulture funds from the housing market, though the minority government faces an uphill battle to secure support in a fragmented parliament.
'TIME TO INTERVENE'
"It is time to intervene in the speculative housing market and start striking a balance between ordinary citizens and vulture funds," Garcia wrote on X.
The government has 30 days from the decree's publication to reach a consensus with allies in congress. Junts, the Catalan pro-independence party that would need to back the decree for it to pass, said on Tuesday it was still far from agreeing to it and wanted protection for small landlords, who make up the vast majority of property owners in Spain.
"We all agreed that evictions – where the property is owned by a fund, a vulture fund, run by someone managing millions of euros – obviously need to be stopped," Junts parliamentary spokesperson Miriam Nogueras said on RTVE.
"Lumping together in this category those who have invested their savings in a flat, a restaurant or a property – putting them all in the same basket – is a mistake," she added.
Other measures approved in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday included stricter regulation of short-term and by-the-room lets, automatic renewal of contracts and limiting rent increases, Garcia said.
Abascal's lawyer said on Tuesday that UrbaGestion, the fund that owns her apartment, had offered a preliminary agreement late on Monday that could allow her return to her home if she agrees to its terms, which would imply paying 30% of her pension over the next eight years, equivalent to around €500 a month.
This would see her paying a similar level as prior to the eviction.
"She should never have been forced to leave," Beatriz Duro told reporters. "I hope this case serves to provide a collective response to the housing crisis."
(Reporting by David Latona, Mireia Merino and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
