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You are here: Home Housing Buying When owning a property in Spain goes awry

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28/10/2008When owning a property in Spain goes awry

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.

MADRID - British pensioner Cliff Carter moved to Valencia in 2003, after his Spanish wife inherited a house from her parents.
 
Casa en la playa
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.
House on the beach
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.
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