A U-turn could be on the cards to legalise properties built in Spain without authorisation – just months after it appeared tens of thousands of British property owners believed they had won a long hard fought campaign.
The Andalusian regional government introduced a planning law that conferred legal status on 327,000 homes in Spain’s largest region.
Following the general election in December, that led to the new left-wing coalition Spanish government, announcing that a ‘challenge’ has been reported to the law.
At the height of the building boom thousands of British and other foreign nationals lost millions of euros in purchasing illegal properties.
Demonstrations and court cases have taken place over the near last two decades – in a bid to get properties legalised – and monies back.
In September 2019 the regional government of Andalucía passed a new law to permit the legalisation of tens of thousands of illegal properties.
The law permitted the legalisation of isolated properties and houses built within an illegal urbanisation be made legal.
In the period going back to 2000 in the boom era, leading up to the crash in 2008, properties were sold in the Almanzora Valley in Almería, amongst other provinces without all the legal documentation.
Tens of thousands of people were caught up in the trap. And the Spanish Consulate and Embassy became involved in the issue.
In 2006 the British Ambassador to Spain, at the time Sir Stephen Wright, requested an appointment to see the president of the regional government of Andalucía – during a time demolition orders were being enforced.
The El Pais newspaper reported, as of October 2006, over 100,000 illegal properties had been built in Spain and that the Guardia Civil had taken action against 12,832 properties.
Some illegal properties were bulldozed by the authorities.
If a U-turn in making illegal properties legal is made, thousands caught up in the scam will be unable to have their Spanish properties legalised.
