MADRID - British pensioner Cliff Carter moved to Valencia in 2003, after his Spanish wife inherited a house from her parents.
The two-storey whitewashed house, built in the 1970s, is located on El Saler beach, inside a natural park just 15 kilometres away from the city of Valencia.
On 2 April 2008, the Carters received a letter that stunned them. In it, the government's coastal authorities informed that by virtue of a 1988 law, their property has been deemed to be on public land, and that ownership therefore reverts to the state.The Carters, added the letter, are free to request a licence allowing them to continue using the property for the next 30 to 60 years.
Hundreds of foreigners - mostly British and German - as well as thousands of equally dismayed Spaniards, are finding themselves in the same situation: their es are handed over to the state. They suddenly need permission to continue living there, cannot sell or expand their homes and a special permit is required for any type of construction work.
Governments stepping in
The complaints have already crossed borders. The governments of Britain and Germany are asking Spain to explain what they consider to be unfair expropriations.
Both countries' embassies have requested information from the environment ministry, especially regarding the Coast Law, which went into effect in 1988 but whose enforcement began picking up speed in 2004, when Cristina Narbona took over the department during Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's first term in power.
The current environment minister, Elena Espinosa, confirmed in mid-October that she has met with European ambassadors to discuss the law, including representatives from Britain and Germany."
According to a British government report that El Pais has had access to, on 21 May 2007, the under secretary of Britain's Foreign Office, Peter Ricketts, put the issue to the Spanish ambassador in London,
In September 2007, Ricketts discussed it with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos during an official visit to Madrid. Finally, another British official met with Spanish coastal authorities to request details about the Ley de Costas, as the legislation is known in Spanish.
"Our embassy in Madrid has raised the matter to a high level, often in collaboration with other EU embassies whose citizens have been affected. We will continue to lobby nationally and regionally to achieve greater security for private property rights in Spain," reads a British report from March. However, the report also pointed out that the UK "cannot interfere in the laws of another sovereign country."
The various British consulates in Spain recommend people take their complaints to the Ombudsman or to the European Parliament, something that many have done already.
The British vice-consul in Alicante, John Tomlinson, wrote back the following lines to Cliff Carter in February 2007: "I am sorry to hear of yet another example of the problems that British citizens are having with regard to property in Spain, and I understand the trouble this is causing you."
Meanwhile, German representatives met with Environment Ministry officials before the summer to convey similar complaints.
Alicia Paz Antolín, the general director of the coast authority, who was at the last meeting with the British delegation said: "They mostly wanted technical information about the law and its application, and said that they shared the spirit of the law."
Britain apparently understands Spain's wish to limit the damage caused by unbridled construction along its coast. But it does not agree with the methods employed to expropriate the properties, whose rightful owners bought the homes in good faith.
Most property registries do not include information about whether a property is affected by a survey of property boundaries, or might be in the future. This means that an unwary buyer could legally purchase a home and years down the line be forced to transfer ownership to the state.
New agreements
The environment ministry said it is drawing up an agreement with registrars and public notaries to ensure that any properties affected by the Coast Law contain this information in the title deed.
These latest cases come on the back of many others in Valencia, where hundreds of British citizens' properties were expropriated to make way for residential estates. These British citizens reported the cases to their representatives in Parliament, who raised the issue before the executive, who in turn informed the embassies.
The Coast Law states that the so-called "public maritime-land domain," or public shoreline, cannot have any house or swimming pool built on it. But because many of the existing properties were built before the 1988 legislation was passed, it was established that existing owners would get a 30-year concession, extendable to another 30.
But in order to determine whether a property lay on public or private land, a land survey of property boundaries had to be conducted. The law established a five-year period for all of Spain's coasts to be surveyed, yet 20 years later, 17 percent of the nation's shoreline has yet to be assessed.
Carrying out such research is no simple task because it requires complex topographical surveys to interpret statements such as the one stipulating that the shoreline is public domain as far inland as "where waves reach during the worst known storms." Also of public domain are any beaches or "deposits of loose material," such as sand, gravel, pebbles and dunes, the law states.
The surveying nearly came to a standstill under the Popular Party-led government between 1996 and 2004, and the current Socialist administration estimates that the task will not be completed before 2011. Meanwhile, the 30-year concessions that were granted in 1988 will begin to expire in 2018. To make matters more complicated, injured parties often file legal complaints, because even one or two metres more of public domain can make a huge difference.
Complaints of residents
Cliff Carter's home has just been declared to be within public boundaries, as have the 80 homes inside an estate called La Casbah and the five-star hotel Sidi Saler, all of which were built in the 1970s.
"They should use common sense. The hotel might not be liked by everyone. But it was built because there was a sale of public land to build a hotel. They can't take away the land from us now. Why don't they start with the thousands of illegal homes built across Spain?" asks Roger Zimmerman, a German national who is in charge of the establishment.
Over at La Casbah, residents virtually jumped on this reporter in their eagerness to tell their story. "I haven't been able to sleep ever since I got the notice from Costas [the coastal authority]. This is my home and they can't take it away from me," exclaims property owner Mercedes Gómez.
Irene Calvet says that she was born here, and now lives in the same home with her small children. "I have lost my job, and cannot even sell my home if I need the money," she points out.
Although the homes furthest from the sea are dozens of metres away from the actual shoreline, the letter says that they are sitting on the dune system belonging to the beach at Devesa.
All the residents mention hotels and buildings that were built far more recently than their properties and which are closer to the sea, from the infamous Algarrobico hotel in Cabo de Gata, Almería province, to the illegal hotels in Lanzarote that are still standing even though they lack a license.
Carter sums it up this way: "The house next door used to be worth EUR 600,000. Now we can't sell this one, and when we die that's it - the house will no longer exist.
We can never sell it."
The Carters own another apartment in Valencia, and in fact most people use these properties as second homes, according to the government, which said it is focusing on giving help to people whose primary dwelling is affected by the legislation.
But the injured parties are beginning to band together, and there is already a national platform of people who have been affected by the Ley de Costas. Its president, Carmen del Amo, reckons that there might be around 45,000 homes across Spain subject to this legislation, of which around 15 percent are owned by foreigners.
"I don't know where they get their figures from. We have no estimates of our own, but that number seems high," said coastal director Paz.
Meanwhile, the environment ministry does not understand why a scandal is being whipped up now about a law that is 20 years old, and stressed that it has won 97 percent of cases brought against it. The High Court, it seems, rules mostly in favour of the government on this issue.
Tips on buying a beachfront house in Spain
The director general of the coastal authority, Alicia Paz Antolín, recommends that anyone interested in purchasing a property on the shoreline must do the following:
1. Visit the government office that keeps information about public boundaries, known as Demarcacion de Costas. This office should be able to produce the documents showing the public and private areas of the beach, giving possible buyers a clear idea of where the land lies.
2. If the documents are not available, and if there is a building slated to go up there, then there must at least be a "probable" boundary. However, in such cases this probable boundary could be reviewed and pushed back, affecting owners who thought they were safe.
"Unfortunately, there are going to be more cases of boundaries being pushed inland than out to shore," said Paz.
Spain's coastal areas face a number of threats; residential construction, new marinas, a smaller amount of sand being washed in to shore and rising sea levels are all contributing to deterioration in the state of the nation's beaches. That is why the coastal authorities have been renewing them for years with sand from the sea bottom.
text by Rafael Mendez / dpa
photo credits: Flickr - Creative Commons-licensed content
Expatica 2008
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The gradual application of a 20-year-old legislation sees an increasing number of property owners, many of them foreigners, stuck with a seafront house they no longer own and cannot sell.
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