ABC Interviews Former Owners of Maricarmen's Apartment

The former owners of the Sainz de Baranda building in Madrid have shared their version of the Maricarmen Abascal case. According to them, the family bought the property in the 1950s with money from a shoe and clothing business, kept the tenant by choice despite the contract ending, and sold the building in 2018 to Renta Corporación.

## A building bought with shoe shop profits

The family patriarch was born in **Brea de Aragón** and arrived in Madrid with a suitcase. He started working and eventually peine a shoe business and then a clothing factory. His four daughters—four of six siblings—worked all their lives in the clothing factory. With this self-generated money, the family was able to buy the entire building on **Sainz de Baranda** in the 1950s. It was not a gift or inheritance: it was the result of decades of work in premises that had little to do with the neighborhood where they are now located.

When the grandfather acquired the property, it was not the Retiro neighborhood it is today. It was a working-class area with many old-rent houses. One grandson remembers playing in piles of sand at construction sites as a child, and his siblings recall seeing sheep grazing there. The parents lived in flats 2C and 2D. The father, a lawyer, also had his office in the same building. The family occupied several flats in the property.

## A tenant they chose to keep

Maricarmen Abascal had been living in the building for years. Under the legal situation at the time, her contract would have expired. But the interviewee's aunts decided to keep her. She was around seventy years old in **2007**. The four sisters, who had worked all their lives in the family factory, chose not to force the exit of an elderly woman. "There is much talk about landlords wanting to evict people, but in our case, it was the opposite," states one former owner. "We maintained the situation out of empathy."

The figures for what Abascal paid appear in the documents held by the family. In February 2010, the total bill was 436.06 euros. The property documents for **2016** show a rent of **154.38 euros**. These bills included other charges: porter or concierge service, water, heating, and specific amounts for works. The interviewee, who married in 1999 and had a daughter in 2002, returned to the building in January 2003 and moved into flat 6D, directly opposite Abascal's residence. He paid 700.58 euros in rent and 758 euros in total bill for the same flat, which was partly owned by his family.

## The 2018 sale and the family's relocation

Living together was not easy, according to the former owners. Abascal constantly complained about the heating, the elevator, and the noise. The interviewee had three young children and also received complaints because the children made noise. "The houses were at 28 degrees," he recalls. He describes the tenant as someone who protested about everything and never showed gratitude for the family's decision to keep her in the residence.

Over time, the family ended up covering the building's repair costs. Whenever there was a need for works—plumbing, courtyards, fixing the elevator machinery—they had to put in money. They finally sold the property in **2018**, around May, to **Renta Corporación**. The interviewee moved into rental accommodation. His brother moved to Torrelodones, and his sister, who lived in her parents' house, moved to a property in Asturias. He settled in **Rivas-Vaciamadrid**, where he paid 1,200 euros for a detached house.

## "We are not the children of marquises"

The public image of the case has caused discomfort in the family. "The image given is that of a poor elderly woman evicted, and from my personal experience, it does not fit the person I knew," says the interviewee. In the neighborhood, she was known by a nickname referring to the dairy shop her mother had between **Fernán González** and **Narváez**. When they sold the house, they commented that they had escaped that situation. Now, with the agreement reached with the City Council, the interviewee feels that the story has worked out well for the tenant. "First, we subsidized her for years, and now it seems we will continue supporting her through our taxes," he says.

What most angers the interviewee is that the history behind the ownership has been forgotten. "A family that saved, worked, and maintained a building and rental contracts for decades. And that this heritage was then sold legally," he summarizes. His concern is that those trying to build savings for retirement or for their children are being pursued. "We were not given a building in **Sainz de Baranda** for free," he insists.

This account does not question the judicial or administrative decisions that may have been adopted in the case. It only adds the version of a family that, according to its own words, does not recognize itself in the public image projected about it. Any decision regarding rental contracts or evictions corresponds to the courts and the administration.