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For those who are thinking on buying properties in Ameria:
Today you can read in “El Pais Andalucía” about the latest development that has been stopped by the Junta de Andalucía : 300 ilegal town houses named Jardines de Almanzora located in the council of Zurgena.
Recently we have been reading more and more news of different developments that have ordered to stop due to ilegal building licenses or even ( something incredible but true ) without building license. One of the biggest cases is the development of 8.000 homes in the council of Cuevas de Almanzora.
At the moment there are more than 63 reports (or files) open in the Almeria’s Public Prosecutor Office affecting different developments in the Province. So this matter is serious enough.
All this sounds like a new Marbella , where thousands of properties (like Banana Beach, some developments in Elviria, etc) were buil with ilegal building licenses given by the Council and many of them are facing a possible demolition in the future. Perhaps some developers are trying now in Almería what they cannot do in the Costa del Sol ?
My advise is :
1.- It is basic that you see the building license before you sign any contract or pay any moneys to the developer (or the agency). But is is also important to remember that Almería is part of Andalucía and therefore it applies the LOUA ( Ley de Ordenación Urbanística de Andalucía ). This is a rather strict law regarding building in all sort of areas , even more strict when the building takes place in rural land ( SUELO NO URBANIZABLE ).2:- Also do not pay moneys or sign contracts ( again: developer or agency ) without checking that there is a bank guarantee given by a spanish bank or insurance company.
3.- Even when you see the building license from the Council: the LOUA does not allow AT ALL any building or extensions made in rural land ( suelo no urbanizable ) unless you are dedicated to agriculture ( you must proof it though ) and you can proof that you need that building for your activity ! This what is happening with some of the developments in Almería. Therefore you MUST check in the Town Hall Planning department what sort of land is that ( Suelo Urbanizable or NO URBANIZABLE ).
Last warning: the new LOUA impose huge fines on ilegal bulding but also estates clearly that properties built on rural land can not be legalised EVER, and it means that. And that is on top of all fines imposed on the owner.
Regards,
José María Sánchez Alfonso
Lawyer / Abogado
Costa del Sol, Málaga
jmsalfonso@inicia.es
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HI ,
I agree with what Independant has to say. We are in the position of having an illegal build, not on the Almanzora site but along the coast from Aguilas.
WE thought that all the checks done were solid, but here we are two years down the line,a large investment of hard earned money, a completed house, (useless to us ) no licence, can’t live in it , can’t sell it and an investigation by the Andalucian government into the builds the builder etc. There are so many reports of illegal builds in Almeria at the moment its quite frightening.Take care when purchasing and just make sure that everything is in order, just don’t take the word of your builder, agent and solicitor. Do some checks yourself. Save yourself a lot of unecessary stress and worry.
We do not know what the outcome will be for our little developement of 39 houses. Our fate is in their hands.
As Independant says BE WARNED !!
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Unless prospective buyers are aware of forums like this one(we certainly were not) they will never know just how much of a mine field they are venturing into.
Jose, you talk of many illegal builds in Marbella…still. On the Green Hills development that we were buying on (Elviria) they are about to complete the lower part of the development but the license was revoked on the upper half. How can the owners of the lower half be absolutely positive that at some time in the future they will not be told their apartments are illegal? I still cannot understand why the whole development was not revoked. ! 😕
Claire.
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It may be that they were never going to get a licence for the top part. I live locally and in another part of elviria there is an Arenal 2000 development where work has been stopped for over 2 years. They still have all the cranes up and flags and the concrete bases are in. Hear that they only had permission for town houses and they started to build large apartments. I wonder if there are people there still trying to get their money back!
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Probably!! 🙄 What a mess it is getting there if all these building works are started and then abandoned. It is such a lovely location too. The town hall people are making a mess of the area by stopping these builds too late. They would probably be better to let them finish what has been started IMO.
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Dear Claire,
it is possible that some buildings of Green Hills are “legal” and some “ilegal”. I explain you how it can be: It could be that part of the plot where the complex is built is considered in the Marbella PGOU as urbanizable ( in some of the sorts that urbanizable covers ) and other part of the plot was no urbanizable.
Please note I am talking about the legal PGOU (the old one which has been declared as the fully legal one by the tribunals ) not the one that GIL got out from his “pockets”.Wheteher the “ilegal” buildings will be demolished or not , this issue was on the media and popular talks for months since the courts started to set sentences declaring many of the building licenses as ilegal ( it is estimated that as much as 30.000 homes are affected in Marbella, remember this is a local problem with Marbella, it doesn’t happen in any other councils in the Costa del Sol ). The Junta de Andalucía?s secretary for Public Works ( She is also in charge of urban planning) declared clearly: most of the ilegal buildings will not be demolished, some sort of solution will be given to the hundredes of buyers affected. BUT the buildings whuch face demolition are the ones built on land that was set in the pgou for parks, green areas , protected areas, schools, health centres….. those buildings will not be legalised.
I hope this helps a bit, regards and excuse my bad english!
Jose Maria Sanchez Alfonso
abogado / Lawyer
Málaga, Costa del Sol
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Thank you Jose for taking the time to reply. Your English is soooo much better than my Spanish 🙂 I had an e-mail yesterday from a gentleman who had been reading the posts about Greenhills. He has bought an apartment on the lower section. He was very worried that these apartments might at a later date be declared illegal. I said I did not think that would happen. So I guess that is the case.
Once again, thank you for your reply,
Regards, Claire.
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@Anonymous wrote:
hello there seems to be a lot of wrong imformation out there .we are told by draken it takkes few monthes for bank guarantee to come through, but by Independent dont pay any monies untill you see a bank guarantee whitch is correct thank you ……
The best idea is to read the law and draw your own conclusions:
Ley 57/1968, de 27 de julio, reguladora de las percepciones de cantidades anticipadas en la construcción y venta de viviendas
Artículo 1º Las personas físicas y jurídicas que promuevan la construcción de viviendas que no sean de protección oficial, destinadas a domicilio o residencia familiar, con carácter permanente o bien a residencia de temporada, accidental o circunstancial y que pretendan obtener de los cesionarios entregas de dinero antes de iniciar la construcción o durante la misma, deberán cumplir las condiciones siguientes:
1ª Garantizar la devolución de las cantidades entregadas más el 6 por 100 de interés anual, mediante contrato de seguro otorgado con Entidad aseguradora inscrita y autorizada en el Registro de la Subdirección General de Seguros o por aval solidario prestado por Entidad inscrita en el Registro de Bancos y Banqueros, o Caja de Ahorros, para el caso de que la construcción no se inicie o no llegue a buen fin por cualquier causa en el plazo convenido.
2ª Percibir las cantidades anticipadas por los adquirentes a través de una Entidad Bancaria o caja de Ahorros, en las que habrán de depositarse en cuenta especial, con separación de cualquier otra clase de fondos pertenecientes al promotor y de las que únicamente podrá disponer para las atenciones derivadas de la construcción de las viviendas. Para la apertura de estas cuentas o depósitos la Entidad bancaria o Caja de Ahorros, bajo su responsabilidad, exigirá la garantía a que se refiere la condición anterior.
A bank cannot guarantee a payment which hasn’t been previously done.
I think what he means is that this genreal insurance policy has been agreed and signed with an insurance company or the [i]general [/i]bank guarantee agreed with a bank by the developer beforehand for all the development.
The above happens at an earlier stage, before the British or Irish prospective buyer comes along and decides to place a deposit.
Albeit the actual physical BG I’ve been talking in the thread spanish lawyers is a personalised or partcularised document which comes into play at a later stage in which the name, surname of the purchaser are included aswell as the amounts of the downpayment. This document takes in fact in my experience several months to obtain after you’ve made the downpayments.
It’s only valid until the licencia de primera ocupación is granted.
Does that make things more clear ?
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A very constructive criticism Michael. 🙄
For your information I don’t charge people for giving advice in this forum and neither do the other Spanish lawyers in this forum.
I also don’t solicit clients over the net, so there is nothing in it for me except stealing my spare time.
The explanation given above is clearly set forth.
The insurance is hired for all the development, but then each flat must have it’s own particularised BG with the name, surname etc of the purchaser aswell as the downpayments covered by the insurance policy or BG. That BG is only handed out months after the 30%-20% downpayment has been carried out.
I presume you don’t even speak Spanish so you haven’t even read the quoted articles of the law hereinabove that rules this matter.
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Sorry all didnt want to upset anybody , especialy solicitors
All i am saying is if you take notice of all that you read on all of the Forums , you would just stay at home in bed and do nothing , For all the people that have trouble in their purchases ( Me Included ) then there are many thousands who have no problems at all .
All of my troubles have been due to a guy who sat up a tree and crawled down holes to prevent the builing of my development .All the clients on that site were told not to continue with their purchase 4 years ago , but us that stuck with it now have a legal site , after many court cases .
Everyone who buys in Spain must take a gamble , if not perhaps buy in another country .
I do appreciate the input from all the solicitors , but can i just say , even their advice varies from one to another . Good luck to all]Cheers
Mike
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Hi – are you buying on the Almanzora Country Club site? What sort of Guarantees do you have that are about to expire?
If you are buying on this site – I would have a long talk with your lawyer – there appear to be be major problems with the development for which there are no easy solutions and “quick fixes”!
We recently pulled out of purchasing a property on this development on the advice of our lawyer – no building licenses – (not likely to be any in the foreseeable future) and land ownership not established byeond a resaonable doubt!
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Hi Maureen take a look at this forum
http://www.viva-almeria.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=14
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