Spain's coalition government has approved new housing measures following protests over the country's housing crisis, sparked by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her home in Madrid last week.
Ministers met on Tuesday to discuss the proposals, which include a potential ban on evictions until 2030, Health Minister Mónica García said.
She said the measures would bring relief to more than five million people - but opposition politician Míriam Nogueras said the agreement left "small landlords out in the cold".
The new housing measures need to be approved in parliament, where the leftist coalition government lacks a majority.
García said other measures agreed upon on Tuesday included the rolling over of contracts until 2028; stricter regulation of short-term and room rentals; and banning the purchase of housing by investment firms.
"It is time to intervene in the speculative housing market and start striking a balance between ordinary citizens and vulture funds," García said.
Referencing the protests, she added: "Thanks to the mobilisations and the encampments. Without you, this would not have been possible."
But Nogueras, spokeswoman for the pro-Catalan independence party Junts, said: "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."
"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 told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
The minority government, which is made up of the ruling Socialists and the junior partners Sumar, has 30 days from the decree's publication to reach an agreement in parliament. Congress will vote on the proposals on Friday.
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez urged political parties to support the proposals - which will be presented in the form of two separate bills - after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal last week.
Ahead of the government's announcement, the lawyer for Maricarmen, who has become a symbol of Spain's housing crisis, said she would be allowed to return to her home after reaching a deal with the company that owns it on Monday.
Abascal, who was admitted to hospital after being forcibly removed from the apartment on a stretcher, was unable to attend the meeting and is yet to sign the deal.
In the north-eastern city of Zaragoza, another woman's eviction was temporarily suspended on Tuesday, the European Pressphoto Agency reported.
Esmeralda Tejero, 51, has lived in a flat in the city for eight years with her 11-year-old daughter, but stopped paying her rent some time ago as she could not afford it on top of her daily living costs, she told Catalan newspaper el Periódico on Monday.
Thousands marched through the capital on Saturday demanding stronger protection for tenants in the face of a housing shortage and soaring rents.
They have warned that they would continue to protest if the government did not meet their demands.
The Bank of Spain estimates the country is short of 700,000 homes, based on the gap between demand and new construction.
House prices have risen by 12.2% in the past year, according to figures for the second quarter of 2026 from national statistics institute INE.
The shortage in rental housing means that costs rose by 8.5% in 2025, according to real estate firm Idealista, with Madrid alone seeing an increase of 9.7% in rents. It said Barcelona and Madrid were Spain's most expensive cities to rent a home, at €23.8 per square metre and €22.7 per square metre respectively.