Water and Electricity Supplies

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    • #54166
      Anonymous
      Participant

      We are shortly due to complete our property purchase near Murcia. Our builder is asking for 900 euros administration fee for builders supply of water and electricity, following transfer to the main supplies a connection fee will be payable to the suppliers. Is this normal and would the property be granted a Certificate of Habitation if the Main Electricity and Water supplies are not connected ?
      Thanks in advance for any answers, will probably have a lot more questions before we complete !!

    • #85129
      Melosine
      Participant

      Once the Boletins from the tradesmen have been signed off ,the architect has prepared the book of works and the Habitation Licence issued the utility companies will put the bills in your name.The electricity company instal a fuse in your property.
      Utility companies bill you for connections direct.
      Until then the property is not legal. One shouldn’t have either moved in or paid final instalment. Unfortunately it is the practice to do so.
      Meanwhile any services, although properly connected to utility companies, are builders supplies and builder pays the bills.
      IMO this “Admin fee” is towards the utility bills the builder is supposed to pay.
      Because of the corruption in some regions in Spain councils are going over the planning consents etc with a fine tooth comb .
      Certainly happening in my area of Murcia where they are also visiting new builds to check build is exactly as permitted.
      Consequently the paperwork is stacking up . In for a very long wait it seems.

    • #85130
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Hi Spiderman,

      Did you sign any papers for this?

      The reason I ask is that the builder I sell for always charges 901 euros for arranging the electric meter and water meter, connections, licenses and arranging the direct debits etc. They have done this for many years. There is also a part whcih says “management expenses”. Im sure this charge is way too much but its always been that way and people sign a contract that it is being done for them.

      Best wishes

      Bernard

    • #85137
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Hi Melosine, thanks for the response.
      Should I therefore refuse to complete until the Habitation Certificate has been issued and the Mains Electricity and Water supplies are connected and registered in my name ?
      Spiderman.

    • #85138
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Hi Spiderman,

      Nobody should complete in Spain until the habitation certificate is issued.

      best wishes

      Bernard

    • #85148
      Melosine
      Participant

      Spiderman,
      Unless you have an individual build and have been actually involved in the planning and licences and know that your build is totally legal I would most definately refuse to make final payment through your lawyer until First Licence of Habitation is issued.
      Unfortunately this is often easier said than done and if buying on a developement then nothing gets signed off, let alone issuing the FLO, until everything on the developement is completed.
      Good luck

    • #85164
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Thanks for the replies, we are buying the property through Atlas, will check with them to see if the Certificate of Habitation has been issued and then take it from there.

    • #85195
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Our developer (small) tried to do this to us. However, when asked why the fee was being charged one year after we had moved in, he said that the “fee” he was going to charge would not get us a contract for electricity, but was for the wiring from the meter to the entrance to our property.

      It was then that the penny dropped and we found that our “development” had been built on the wrong type of land (although catastral record shows different!), built without permissions and so there was never any chance of us getting a contract with the electricity company as there was no LFO or habitation cert of any sort. Plus our “builders supply” was illegal too!

      It was the developer just being greedy!

      We didn’t pay and in a fit of pique, he shinned up our electricity pole and pulled the wire out! Nice fella!

      Luckily we were coming back to the UK the next day, but even so it just summed up Spain for us.

    • #85199
      Melosine
      Participant

      Spiderman, it is your lawyer who deals with this.
      Hopefully, as in UK , you do have one totally independant from the seller/ agent Atlas because although you are billed for the service it is often biased towards developer 😕 .
      Take care

    • #85280
      Anonymous
      Participant

      I am a bit confused about all this.
      We completed in 2005 . Prior to completion we were told that no one could enter the apartment, I contacted the Lawyer because we had the furniture company wanting to measure for curtains etc.
      I received an email which mentioned we did not have the Habitation Licence but this was because Marbella Town Hall were slow and behind!
      As this information was from a Lawyer and we were still being allowed to complete we did so as we had no reason to be suspicious after all he was the Lawyer.
      Of course in 2006 we still had no Licence in paper form, and found out that we were on an illegal build BUT from day one we have had utilility bills in my husband’s name for both water and electricity.

      I read up on this and found out for the Utility Companies to connect they had to see the Habitation Licence, so I contacted them to ask if a licence for our property had been made available to them-that was over a year ago and I have had no response.

      All we got from from our Lawyer when we found out that we were on an illegal build was that we had been given the licence by Administrative Silence. We met with the deveolper’s staff and were given a copy of the developers application for the licence with dates ranging over three months, as the Council did not either object or confirm it was practice to be granted the licence. The developer therefore said we were legal.

      Now I know that due to all the corruption etc which erupted this historic Administrative Silence flew out the window, but where did the Utility Companies stand in this. Were they or were they not supposed to see a proper paper licence, and how did we manage to get connected in our own name when others have not? Some more brown envelopes!!

      There seems to be an answer for everything, the good news is we are now legal on the PGOU the bad news is that it is taking so bloody long for them to give us the paperwork, the Junta still have to look at everything and now rumour is it will be Summer 2009-three years since all this mess started. 😡

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