In short those in the illegal house are not the major cause of the town halls debt problems.

Collecting all the relevant normal legal taxes will do very little to sort out Catral’s debt problem.

Below is some explanation of why this is true.

The SUMA office toured the countryside of Catral about 3 years ago, logging details of all homes there. As a consequence they issued IBI (rates) Basura (rubbish) bills and rustic land tax to hundreds of homes, including illegal houses and old Spanish fincas.

In many cases backdated by 3 years. These bills have been and continue to be paid.

When the rest of the homes are legalised there will be the opportunity to back date the tax (SUMA) bills for these houses too.

Nearly 400 of these illegal homes have not been sold yet, so are not due to pay taxes yet and do not use the services either yet.

Even if the remaining illegal houses did pay tax and rubbish it would not equate anywhere close to 1.8 million Euros. Let’s say 600 of the 1,200 houses have been sold and do not pay their taxes at current levels, the revenue each year would only equate to 204,000 euros per year. (300 euros IBI, 30 euros basura, & 10 euros rustic land tax per house).

For the past 4 years no new homes have been able to arrange to the door postal services. Some did arrange this service in the past and still do, but only a couple of hundred at the most. The rest have to rent a box at the post office or from the town hall, both of which are paid for by the home owners directly.

The majority of the expat families are elderly so do not actually need to use the school services. Those hundreds that do pay more than cover for those that do need this service. There are less than 40 EU students in the local schools at the moment, some of whom live in the town and whose parents do already pay SUMA taxes.

Health care is a real issue, it is heavily used by those EU citizens old enough to leave the UK system and join the Spanish system. But bear in mind a significant number are not old enough to leave the UK system sohave to use private health care.

Some work and contribute cash to the Spanish social security system that way, many EU retirees also pay income tax in Spain.

The UK pays the Spanish government a yearly cash sum for each UK pensioner Spain takes care of. Each town hall receives funding for every person registered for health care in their town too from the Spanish government regardless of that persons nationality.

The town hall only contributes to some health services, like GP’s. If someone is seriously ill, then they use services paid for by Valencia and the national government. So the town halls exposure to additional costs is limited, with all residents.

Lastly, where has the revenue already paid to the town hall in the past 6 years for fencing licences, and in a few cases building or renovation licences gone.

In addition at least 269 houses received heavy fines in these 6 years, all of which the builders paid. A total of over 12 million euros in additional revenue over 6 years for the town hall. Where then did the 1.8 million debt come from, only a percentage of it is from unpaid
taxes, or can be recovered this way.

Factor in those residents living full time in Catral spending in bars, restaurants, shops and supermarkets, cleaners, carers, and gardeners based in Catral, which all pay local rates and employ people from Catral regardless of their nationality. You can see that overall these people do not represent a financial drain on the local community. In reality it is the opposite.

The majority want to be legal and pay their taxes.