Protests erupted in Spain after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home, prompting the Spanish government to announce a ban on evictions. The backdrop: Spanish housing prices and rents have been climbing at a pace of nearly 10% a year, far outpacing wage growth. Following the news, discussion on overseas forums focused less on whether the eviction ban itself was a good idea and more on what’s driving the price surge — with criticism aimed at the lack of taxes on vacant homes and the system that turns real estate into a speculative asset. At the same time, many worried the ban could worsen Spain’s already troublesome squatting (“okupas”) problem, splitting commenters between supporters and the concerned.
Spain announces eviction ban following protests over 87-year-old woman’s removal from her apartment
It's just wrong that owning property purely to rent it out has become some kind of 'badge of success.' All it creates is a divided society — tenants scraping by paycheck to paycheck, and landlords constantly fretting over whether their investment will pay off.
6Anonymous2026-10-01 07:34
Sure, it shouldn't be that way, but from what this article says, no better alternative solution is actually being offered.
5Anonymous2026-10-01 09:55
There was a guy in my neighborhood who used to blast music from 4 to 7 in the morning. After months of complaints, he finally got evicted. If evictions were banned, he probably would've just gotten 'taken care of' some other way.
7Anonymous2026-10-01 08:18
Spain's overall population probably isn't growing, but people are moving into popular areas where it's easier to find work or study.
17Anonymous2026-10-01 08:52
The rich are the beginning and the end of this problem.
21Anonymous2026-10-01 06:46
Housing prices and rent both climbing almost 10% a year is just insane… can someone explain why? The article just says there's a housing shortage, but what's actually causing it? Spain's population isn't even growing.
27Anonymous2026-10-01 07:09
Greed. That's it.
Cost of living is rising faster than wages. We're edging toward that late-stage-capitalism scenario people joke about — 'you'll own nothing and be happy.'
8Anonymous2026-10-01 11:22
I think it's really great that so many people stood up for one person. Well done 🙌
20Anonymous2026-10-01 13:42
Yeah, that's the kind of thing that happens when a society's roots aren't completely rotten. At least I want to believe that's the reason — though that might just be wishful thinking.
10Anonymous2026-10-01 08:13
Just tax vacant units, with the tax increasing exponentially the longer they're left empty.
12Anonymous2026-10-01 06:26
'How do we prevent the obvious abuse this would cause?'…
Oh no, just imagine it.
Every house actually becomes a place where someone lives, and people stop handing their money over to rich folks who leave multiple homes empty for all but a few days a year.
Truly a 'terrible' outcome.
13Anonymous2026-10-01 07:30
Without any guarantee of a return on investment, nobody will invest in building housing anymore, and there'll end up being fewer livable homes, or worse-quality ones.
29Anonymous2026-10-01 07:03
If evictions are banned, why would you need to worry about that? No evictions means you can't get kicked out of your own home… 🤷♀️
15Anonymous2026-10-01 05:53
I wish this would happen in the US too.
18Anonymous2026-10-01 15:10
Wasn't Spain already dealing with a problem of people squatting in other people's homes and refusing to leave?
39Anonymous2026-10-01 18:23
Until someone shows actual numbers, I'm guessing that problem is just being overblown.
23Anonymous2026-10-01 09:42
A Spanish friend of mine told me this has been going on for a while already.
Apparently if a foreigner buys a house or apartment to use as a vacation home, and someone breaks in and squats there while they're away, they can't be kicked out.
Can any Spaniards confirm if this is actually true?
26Anonymous2026-10-01 13:13
That's true, but it's an extremely rare case that only gets attention because it sounds so outrageous. Most cases are simply people who, for whatever reason, became unable to pay rent. There are some who exploit the eviction ban and deliberately refuse to pay, but we don't know the proportion — I'd guess that's a minority too.
31Anonymous2026-10-01 12:48
I don't know about Spain, but in France this is 100% true. It's actually even worse — if someone squats in your one and only home and you don't file a police report within 48 hours of the break-in, the squatter gets to stay.
It's absolutely insane.
24Anonymous2026-10-01 09:32
Turning housing — something that's supposed to be a basic necessity — into a speculative asset, then profiting even further off the rental market from a housing shortage they themselves caused? That's just karma.
28Anonymous2026-10-01 07:13
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. This law will surely go through rounds of amendments down the line too.
30Anonymous2026-10-01 07:27
If there's a plan to prevent supply from collapsing, that amendment should be put forward at the same time.
32Anonymous2026-10-01 07:02
Come visit the Czech Republic — Prague especially.
33Anonymous2026-10-01 06:47
Somebody please think of the poor 'little guy' landlords too. All they did was buy a property first so nobody else could, and now they just sit back doing nothing while skimming money off other people's labor.
35Anonymous2026-10-01 18:22
Oh yeah, totally. Their 'investment' just drains money from poor people's paychecks while crushing their chance to ever own a home. Super fair.
36Anonymous2026-10-01 16:08
The idea that 'not everyone wants to own' is fine in theory, but even students would want their own place if they could afford it. Same goes for other groups — ideally, if it weren't so expensive, you'd buy, maintain it, and sell it for roughly the same price when you move.
38Anonymous2026-10-01 15:05
Whoa…
But isn't it illegal in the first place to not have the proper paperwork? At least for tax purposes.
I get that court cases take time, but I'm curious how this actually works legally.
Does the same thing happen with cars too?
40Anonymous2026-10-01 18:55
I saw this covered on TV. Apparently there are now specialized companies that remove squatters for you. If that's become an actual business, it must be a pretty big problem for people in Spain.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Spain is one of the Southern European countries where housing prices and rents have risen especially sharply, and the nearly 10%-a-year pace mentioned in the thread far outstrips wage growth. The thread repeatedly brought up the issue of “squatting” (okupas), but that’s actually a separate legal matter from this eviction ban — in Spain and France, if you don’t report a break-in within 48 hours, it becomes difficult to remove the squatter, a legal treatment distinct from ordinary rental contracts. The eviction ban itself applies only to tenants who’ve become unable to pay rent, not to squatters — though commenters didn’t always draw a clear line between the two as the discussion unfolded. Points about the merits of holding housing as an investment asset and taxing vacant homes were also raised, but the discussion never got into concrete policy design, and it ended with opinions still divided.
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