Spain's Óscar López faces eviction scandal involving Muface

Óscar López and the Muface eviction scandal hitting Spain's PSOE

Can a ministry approve a tenant's eviction while its minister denounces other evictions? That is what the Madrid Tenants Union claims regarding a case in the same building where Mari Carmen lives, whose eviction became a political symbol. The affected person does not rent from a private landlord: they live in a property owned by Muface, the civil servants' health mutual fund. The paradox is textbook.

What is Muface and why does it own rental properties?

Muface, the General Mutual Fund for Civil Servants of the State, manages more than just public employees' health insurance. It also owns a real estate portfolio that it rents out. This detail, unknown to many, triggered the controversy: the eviction was not carried out by a vulture fund or a private landlord, but by a public entity dependent on the Government.

The discussion intersects with old-rent contracts (renta antigua), a legal mechanism allowing tenancies at prices far below market rates. According to circulating reports, the affected tenant has two children with rare diseases, worsening their financial situation. They reportedly wrote to the political leader asking for understanding but received no response, according to the union's account.

The contradiction the PSOE cannot explain

The same Óscar López who publicly denounced Maricarmen's eviction allegedly approved the procedure to evict a neighbor from the building opposite. The geographical coincidence turned this into political ammunition: same neighborhood, same street, different standards.

Some argue the issue is not the eviction itself, but the hypocrisy of condemning it when caused by private individuals while executing it when the owner is the State. Others contend that non-payment leads to the same legal consequences regardless of the landlord. The debate on public housing and evictions has become a minefield for the Government.

Domino effect: more cases in the same week

This is not an isolated incident. Parallel reports point to PSOE officials with significant real estate assets. A socialist candidate in Granada reportedly owns 19 properties, according to published documents. Additionally, the partner of a party leader allegedly accumulated €13.3 million in rentals since Sánchez took office, via a company that has not paid taxes for five years, according to the same sources.

The accumulation of cases has created information saturation. Each new fact reinforces the narrative that official discourse on housing does not match the practices of those delivering it. The lingering question is how many more cases must emerge before this stops being an anecdote and becomes a structural problem for the party.

Union response and November 11 mobilization call

The Madrid Tenants Union reacted quickly. It labeled the situation as limitless hypocrisy and called for a mobilization on November 11. This date has become the next milestone in housing protests.

The irony is that the union, typically critical of evictions by funds and private landlords, now targets the Government itself. This uncomfortable position reflects the problem's complexity: it is not an isolated case, but a public policy generating internal contradictions.

What is at stake

The Muface case exposes an uncomfortable reality: the State, through its bodies, also carries out evictions. Unlike private landlords, there is no profit motive here, but there is a legal obligation to manage assets. The question is whether this management should consider social criteria or if administrative procedures are blind to personal circumstances.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have the easiest campaign in history, some analyses suggest. The difficulty lies not in finding ammunition, but in avoiding self-sabotage. For its part, the PSOE faces the challenge of explaining why it condemns what it practices. And citizens, especially tenants, watch with growing skepticism a debate where everyone talks about housing, but few seem willing to give up their own properties.