[Anonymous]

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I recently found the property I want to buy near Granada. A price was arranged and I asked a local lawyer to act for me. She soon came back to me and said there is a problem.

When she had checked the land registration she found that the property was caught by a ‘new law’ It would seem that the property can only be sold to someone who earns less than E40,000 and who will live in it perminantly.

All seems lost as far as this property is concerned and now I wonder how many other properties might be caught in the same way. Even the property I already own in Spain could in caught is guess.

Has anyone else come across this sort of thing in the past or recently?

[Anonymous]

Haven’t heard of it .

Sounds as if it could be a similar thing to what we have here in UK , certain properties put aside for key workers to enable them to get onto the property ladder.

[Anonymous]

It would seem that the property can only be sold to someone who earns less than E40,000 and who will live in it perminantly.

Sounds like a protected dwelling, some kind of VPO. The ‘new law’ your lawyer told you about must be Andalusian Junta LEY 13/2005, de 11 de noviembre, de medidas para la vivienda protegida y el suelo. But I heard they were going to ‘soften’ it due to proprietors complaints

I wonder how many other properties might be caught in the same way. Even the property I already own in Spain could in caught is guess.

Nope… in general a VPO dwelling has to be protected from the begining, this is they cannot turn your already made private house a ‘protected’ one unless they buy or expropriate it from you first.

All this info is always specified in the deeds of the property

A different issue could be if you had bought a Protected Dwelling from the former owner and you didn’t know, but as I told you, that info must be in the deeds, if not, you can consider your house a not officially protected one.

Cesar

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replys.

Cesar, the regulation you quote seems to have been passed last year and yet the property must be at least 6 years old. Therefore it can’t have been so designated when it was built. I’ll ask my lawyer for her views on this and post her reply for info.

Thanks again for contributions.

[Anonymous]

philip,

the regulation you quote seems to have been passed last year and yet the property must be at least 6 years old

That’s precisely the point… They wanted this regulation to be retroactively applied to every Protected house no matter the date of building (to apply restrictions to already protected houses no to turn private houses into protected ones)

This is what I’ve heard was going to be softened due to protected houses proprietors complaints

By the way, this is being done in various Autonomous Communities not only in Andalusia to try to avoid fraud (you buy a house in a limited price as it is ‘protected’ but in a few years you sell it at a normal market price) In short (very short) they are introducing two main measures: First, they will make it compulsory to attach the private contract to the deeds the day you sign them before the Notary, Second they have created the figure of legal pre-emption in favor of the Administration, this is a right of first refusal or the right to purchase the property in preference should the owner wish to sell… of course the Administration will only pay the official rate, not the market value as the main purpose of this Law is to recover the property to reassign it again to the ‘protected’ market.

Cesar

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