Home owners whose properties were built illegally face losing their villas. But Expatica reports on a loophole which may save them from this fate.

Every expat's nightmare: The bulldozer goes to work

Yvonne and Jack Burditt bought their beach front apartment in Marbella three years ago, hoping to see out their retirement gazing out onto the Mediterranean.

Now the British couple, who are both in their 80s, face the threat of bulldozers ruining their dream.

The Burditt's three-bedroom apartment is among a number of homes on the Banana Beach development which faces being demolished as it is thought to have been built illegally.

The former Marbella city council, which was dissolved in March after a multi-million pound civic corruption scandal, granted permission for Banana Beach to be built.

But a police investigation is underway into whether bribes were paid by the property developers to unscrupulous council officials in order for building licences to be granted.

The homes in the Banana Beach development are among 30,000 in Marbella which are thought to be illegal and could face demolition.

 Mrs Burditt, 83, whose husband is a retired businessman, said: "It was a terrific shock when we heard on the radio that it could be demolished.

"We bought the place in good faith for over EUR 200,000. No-one knows what is going to happen. But we would have nowhere to go."

The Burditts are typical of thousands of worried Britons with properties in Spain who face the threat that all illegal properties will be knocked down regardless of whether they bought them in good faith.

Spain's new environmental prosecutor Antonio Vercher said an estimated 100,000 illegal homes exist in Spain.

In a crackdown on illegally built properties, Vercher says he will presume buyers knew they were illegal when they bought their properties and will knock down their homes.

H said: "I can't believe these people spent all this money and did not know these houses were illegal.

"Most have benefited from lower prices because they were illegal. We will have to knock them down."

He said despite language and cultural barriers, foreigners looking for a villa in Spain could all have done routine checks by looking at the local property register which would have revealed if their home was legal or not. 

The register would show if the house had been properly registered with the authorities.
Vercher said: "It is obvious that when you buy you have to go to the register.

"I find it astonishing that people could spend so much money without checking."
Homes which are illegal had usually had licences handed out not in the proper way by corrupt or simply inefficient town planning officials.

Unfortunately for home buyers in Spain, the problem of corruption linked to the country's booming building industry is not confined to the Costa del Sol.

The Spanish investigative magazine Interviu  recently  published a 'corruption map' of the country showing examples of similar scandals in the Basque Country in the north-west, in the western region of Galicia and in the Canary and Balearic Islands.

But there may be a legal loophole which will save expat homeowners from seeing their dream homes reduced to rubble.

Experts said courts would have to consider if any owners whose holiday or retirement homes are threatened bought them in good faith or not.

Manuel Martín, dean of the College of Registrars for Property in Western Andalusia, said homeowners are protected under Spanish law by the "principle of public faith in the registry".

He added: "This ensures that those who purchased homes in the belief that the information supplied to them by officials was correct must be allowed to keep ownership."
If in the worst case scenario, a court ruled the owner had not acted in good faith, their properties could then be demolished.

But they would still have one other option even if it might offer scant compensation;  they could take sellers or builders to court using civil law to claim indemnification.

The campaign to crack down on illegal building comes amid mounting public outrage in Spain from residents groups, ecological groups and mainstream political parties about the building fraud which is putting many British buyers off.

Mark Stucklin, Expatica's resident property expert who runs the website www.spanishpropertyinsight.com, said: "These stories about illegal homes are definitely making people wary. They are reading the stories and thinking twice about buying in Spain."

[Copyright Expatica]

[December 2006]

Subject: Spain; illegal building