Old-rent contracts in Spain: vultures circling over your home

On Spanish property portals, flats with active old-rent contracts are being advertised, whose main appeal to investors is that the tenant, often elderly, will die and the property will become vacant. The practice is legal but has sparked social backlash after the case of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old resident of Madrid who got her home back under pressure from the Tenants' Union.

A penthouse in Entrevías, in Madrid's Villa de Vallecas district, was listed for **195,000 euros**. The estate agency described it as an opportunity for buy-and-hold investors. The detail that changed everything was buried in one line of the listing: it comes with an active old-rent lease. Among the photos of the flat was a highly symbolic image: a brick sign in the neighbourhood reading "The neighbourhood is ours", a monument by the collective Todo por la Praxis that stayed in Palomeras Bajas thanks to the residents' association. The irony speaks for itself. The agency insisted the appeal was not immediate returns but the asset value and future appreciation. The listing was taken down on a Thursday, just hours before Congress rejected the two housing decrees the Government had put forward.

## Old-rent contracts, explained for those who never lived under one

Old rent is a tenancy regime regulated by Spain's 1964 Urban Lease Act, which froze the prices of contracts signed before 1985. The 1994 Urban Lease Act preserved those contracts through a transitional provision, and many remain subject to an expiry date that in practice runs until December 2070. The tenant pays a rent far below market rate and can only be evicted in specific circumstances: non-payment, the owner's need for the property for themselves or a first-degree relative, or the death of the contract holder. It is that last scenario that turns these flats into a financial product.

The calculation investors make is macabre but simple. Buy the flat well below market price, collect a modest rent for as many years as the tenant lives, and when they die the property is vacant and can be sold or let at today's prices. Gross yield is calculated by dividing annual income by the purchase price and multiplying by 100. A flat costing **140,000 euros** and rented for **800 euros** a month generates **9,600 euros** a year, a gross yield of **6.8%**. Between **5%** and **7%** is considered very good; from **9%** up, exceptional.

## The listings that put a price on waiting

A quick browse of Idealista or Fotocasa is enough to spot the pattern. A flat in Getafe, on calle Egido, for **195,000 euros**: let under an old-rent contract, with no possibility of terminating it until the tenant dies — she is **68** — and a rent of **359 euros** a month, adjustable with the CPI. Another in Alcalá de Henares for **165,000 euros**, on calle Lope de Vega, with a tenant under an old-rent contract and a steady return of **610 euros** a month. In Valladolid, on calle José María Lacort, a flat "ready to move into, very well kept", which is in fact let under an old-rent contract and whose listing explains that the owner can reclaim the property if they need it for themselves or a first-degree relative. In Palma de Mallorca, on calle Solo, a **75-square-metre** ground-floor flat for **245,000 euros**: **97.5%** of the ownership is transferred, without possession, with a **75-year-old** tenant, not mortgageable and cash only.

In Cádiz, in the El Pópulo neighbourhood, a **27-square-metre** flat for **60,000 euros**. The listing promises an investment for the rest of your life and adds that the monthly rent, "for an old-rent contract, isn't bad at all", with an annual return of around **6%**. Not all listings treat the people living between those walls the same way, but most don't hold back. Some point out that the contract will expire in **December 2070**, the date to which many were tied by the transitional provision of the Urban Lease Act.

## The Maricarmen case and the rental jungle

**Maricarmen** is **87** and paid **500 euros** in rent under an old-rent contract inherited from her parents in the Ibiza neighbourhood of Madrid. The fund that bought her flat found a legal loophole and managed to terminate the contract in court. Her eviction took place on **23 September**. Pressure from the Tenants' Union forced an agreement out of the owners at **Urbagestión** under which she can stay in her home for **eight years**. She is not the only one. In May 2026, a listing on Idealista was removed that offered a flat in bare ownership belonging to a couple under **60**. The agency suggested that the situation of the usufructuaries, a **56-year-old** man and a **59-year-old** woman, could have a positive influence on the investment: both had fragile health conditions including scoliosis, dialysis and diabetes, and had no children. Similar properties were priced between **240,000** and **270,000 euros**.

**Alejandro Inurrieta**, a housing expert and former president of the now-defunct Sociedad Pública de Alquiler (a public rental housing company), describes the rental market as "a jungle" enjoying total impunity. He recalls that during the pandemic, when rent increases were capped at **2%**, many landlords dared tenants to report them, and that he has seen contracts drafted by major law firms seeking to make tenants waive the Urban Lease Act. On the Maricarmen case, he points out that the owners stayed hidden and now blame the Tenants' Union for their fruta going down the drain, but that if the case had not been so high-profile, Maricarmen would never have returned to her home.

Selling flats with old-rent tenants is legal. The contract passes with the property and the buyer assumes the rent and its terms. What has changed is the visibility: portals like Idealista and Fotocasa allow users to filter for rented or even squatted properties, and many of those flats end up converted into tourist accommodation. Social backlash has grown at the same pace as the listings. The protest camps spread from Puerta del Sol to other cities and Congress rejected the Government's two housing decrees. Meanwhile, the vultures keep circling. And the listings, with their language of opportunity and appreciation, keep putting a price on waiting.