Hours after the death of 87-year-old Maricarmen on 7 October 2026, a purported listing for her former flat in Madrid began circulating on social media on Idealista Checks by several fact-checkers and media outlets found that the circulating screenshot was not genuine. Technical detection tools reported that they had identified SynthID, a digital watermark developed by Google and embedded in some content created using artificial intelligence.
The image also contains factual inconsistencies: it gives Barrio de Salamanca as the location, but the address provided is on Calle del Alcalde Sainz de Baranda, which is clearly in the Madrid district of Retiro . The fake also gives the second floor, whereas records of Maricarmen’s case state that she lived on the sixth floor. No genuine listing on the property platform could be found in the relevant archives or through a platform search.
It first circulated on X, formerly Twitter. The user who first shared the image montage later wrote in their own post that they were spreading “deliberate disinformation online”. This characterisation comes from the author themselves; no further claims about their motives or background have been substantiated so far.
The case is part of a series of false reports that emerged after Maricarmen was evicted on 23 September 2026. Her plight sparked widespread debate in Spain about tenant protection and eviction procedures. Media reports had at one point mentioned the possibility of a return agreement with the property company Urbagestión but a return was never confirmed. Maricarmen died in hospital on 7 October 2026.
In this context, fact-checkers warn against uncritically sharing supposed evidence on social media. They recommend looking out for formal inconsistencies such as incorrect place names, contradictory details or a lack of source traceability, and checking suspicious images with recognised tools. In this case, the technical watermark identified by SynthID, the absence of a genuine Idealista listing and the clear factual errors all point to the circulating advert being inauthentic.
At the time of the last checks on 8 October 2026, there was no reliable evidence that Maricarmen’s flat had been publicly offered for rent immediately after her death. The disputed screenshot should therefore be regarded as a fake.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).