Banana Beach, Marbella, no sign of a reprieve

The Autonomous Government is drafting legislation to do something about hundreds of thousands of illegal homes in the region.

Andalusia’s regional government, or Junta, is drawing up plans to deal with hundreds of thousands of homes that fall foul of planning laws and the Ley de Costas (Coastal Law), reports the Spanish press.

It’s a problem that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later as it turns off buyers just when the market needs them most. Nevertheless, my guess is it could be years before we see any results.

Difficult as it is to believe, the authorities in Andalucia failed to stop illegal building on a massive scale in recent decades, with around 20,000 illegal homes built in Marbella alone.

In rural areas like the Axarquia and Almanzora Valley, thousands of homes have been illegally built on rustic land, many of them bought by hapless British buyers.

The Junta is reported to be drawing up criteria for legalising homes, implying there will be no blanket amnesty.

Without a blanket amnesty, some homes will remain illegal, with demolition the only solution. That fate may await homes built on specially protected land such as nature reserves, and that fall foul of the Ley de Costas.

The new regulations are being drafted by Andalusia’s Department of Public Works and could force owners to pay the costs of legalising their homes.

There is no news as to when to expect the new rules to come into force. Stay tuned for more information.

There are several booby-traps awaiting house-hunters in Spain, one of which is the treacherous Ley de Costas (Coastal Law) of 1988 which nationalised the coastline, creating a boundary between public and private land known as the Deslinde del Dominio Público Marítimo Terrestre (DDPMT).

Buy on the wrong side of this line by mistake, as a bunch of Britons do each year, and you find you don’t actually own anything, other than a concession of use (if you are lucky). So if you plan to buy anywhere near the seafront it’s vital to know where the boundary lies, assuming there is a boundary (the law may have been passed in ’88, but large parts of the coast still haven’t been done). Don’t even think about buying near the beach in places that don’t yet have a boundary.

Fortunately, you can now check the boundary online, at least for some popular destinations like The Balearics and Andalucia’s Granada province (Costa Tropical). Not much of the coast is covered, but it’s a start. You will find a link to the map below.

The maps are published by the Environmental Ministry’s office for coastal sustainability (Dirección General de Sotenibilidad de la Costa y del Mar) with plans to extend the areas covered over time.

The lurid green line you will see shows the DDPMT, and the yellow line further inland shows the zone of special protection where you can own property, but with serious restrictions. In the image above you can clearly see properties in Formentera that are on the wrong side of the green line. To be on the safe side don’t even buy inside the yellow line.

I’ve written several articles here and in the Sunday Times about this law and its dismal failure to protect the environment whilst pinching the private property of thousands, if not tens of thousands of individuals, many of them British, all without compensation. For more background see this briefing on the Ley de Costas – Spanish Coastal Law and these other articles.

+ Coastal boundary map

The Ley de Costas has failed to protect the coast

Spanish parliamentarians will debate the infamous Ley de Costas, the bane of many holiday-home owners, for the first time since it was introduced in 1988.

Finally, a political initiative from Spain’s regional political parties that makes some sense. The Coalición Canaria (CC) party from The Canaries has drummed up enough support from opposition parties such as CiU, a regional party from Catalonia, to debate new proposals to water down some aspects of the Ley de Costas.

When introduced in 1988, the Ley de Costas, or Coastal Law, nationalised the entire Spanish coastline at a stroke, expropriating hundreds of thousands of properties without compensation. (Read briefing on the Ley de Costas – Spanish Coastal Law)

The law was meant to protect the coast – Spain’s key tourism asset – from over-development, and make it accessible to all. But thanks to muddled thinking and terrible implementation, the law utterly failed to protect the environment whilst causing misery for tens of thousands of small property owners, many of them Britons like Heather and Jeremy Taylor.

In response to the outcry from owners, Coalición Canaria propose reducing demolition threats hanging over many of the properties built on public land, even if built after the law was introduced in ’88. They also want to introduce subjective criteria such as architectural and historic values when evaluating property built on public land, whilst transferring more decision-making powers over demolitions to regional authorities. All of which would make demolitions far less likely.

The moderate Catalan nationalists CiU want to revise the boundary criteria in built up areas like the Santa Margarida urbanisation (Roses, Girona), and the Empuriabrava Marina. They also point out that many of the victims of the law are foreigners who were unaware of the risks when they bought homes on the coast in good faith, resulting in international condemnation for Spain.

The biggest opposition party, the PP, have not yet decided what they will do, but seem open to the debate. “People have come to regard as sacred this law that has failed to achieve its objectived, as in the 20 years since it was introduced the coast has suffered the greatest damage,” Carlos Floriano, the PP’s environmental spokesman, told the Spanish press. “It hasn’t managed to reconcile the environment and respect for private property. Many people’s rights are being violated by its procedures.”

The Greens are against any reform of the Ley de Costas, despite its utter failure to protect the environment. On this question they seem more concerned with ideology than actually protecting the environment.

For its part the Government, run by the PSOE socialists, opposes the proposals, though for the time being it has stopped implementing the law as rigorously as before.

When will this debate take place? I’ll let you know.