Marbella property market comeback?

Gil, who left office in 2002, died in 2004. Investigations into his years in office began shortly afterwards. There were dozens of arrests – those taken into custody included the then mayor and her predecessor – and among those now standing trial on charges of money-laundering and corruption is Juan Antonio Roca, Gil’s town-planning chief. He is accused of leading a gang that obtained £15m in bribes and bungs. In what allegedly amounted to a development free-for-all – provided the payoff was right – properties were built on land earmarked for parks and public facilities. Now, in return for an amnesty on properties built in such areas, the town “must be compensated with land for new infra-structure and facilities”, the mayor says.

Developers who benefited from illegal licences granted under previous administrations are expected to provide the land – a total of 118 hectares is due to be handed over. “Most of the developers have already agreed to do this,” Muñoz confirms.

However, 752 properties will not be legalised, because planners argue that they have been built on essential public land, so 377 owners – some of them Britons – are facing the prospect of these properties being demolished. Judicial proceedings are in progress. Meanwhile, the new urban plan, and the amnesty deal it contains, is due to get final approval from Seville next year.

Many of the properties that may be razed are in the vast Banana Beach development, just outside the town. John Toomey and his Spanish wife, Marisa, both 61, bought there in 2004, when the cost of a three-bedroom flat with sea views such as theirs had risen to about €500,000, and the prospect of any illegality was not on the horizon.

“We took great care with the legal search, using a local lawyer,” says John, a property lawyer himself, from Harrow. “There was a building licence from the town hall, and there was no record of any problems in the property register – which, by law, should give you all the assurances you need.”

The Toomeys are understandably bitter about the prospect of losing their seaside home. “The government in Seville was happy to take tens of thousands of euros from us in stamp duty, but now they say our property is illegal, while arbitrarily legalising thousands of others,” says John. “Seville is treating us like criminals, and has never expressed the slightest sympathy, even though it is to blame for the situation. We trusted the system, only to end up innocent victims of the public administration’s corruption and incompetence. One British couple who own in Banana Beach are in their mid-eighties. It is their only home, but they need to move to a nursing home, and can’t sell. It is a terrible situation.”

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