The victims of the looting of Marbella are starting to appear as statistics in the local courts. Hundreds of property buyers - thousands according to some judicial sources - are waiting for the courts to decide about the legal situation of the apartments they purchased back when they were still a dream holiday home on paper and have now turned into a nightmare with monthly installments.
We are not talking about wealthy proprietors who are concerned about the increasing interest rates and the slump in the market. Their main cause for concern is the legal situation of their new properties, built with the backing of dubious planning permission that is now being re-examined and withdrawn by the courts. They are afraid of being stuck with a property whose complex administrative situation leaves huge question marks hanging over its future.
The main problem with these properties is the lack of a first occupancy licence due to the conditions under which the building licence was granted. The majority of cases refer to developments whose licences were signed by the late Jesús Gil or his successors and which violated planning regulations. Most of these were challenged in court by the regional authorities but the slow administrative process meant that while the judges were deliberating, the law-breaking plans were turned into bricks and mortar. Almost all the developments were finished, but their legal situation remained undecided.
Now the buyers are refusing to sign the title deeds and are calling for the courts to order the developers to give them their money back. Meanwhile the developers want the courts to force their clients to honour their contracts.
The first sentences to come out of the Marbella courts have not helped clear the air of uncertainty. Quite the opposite. In two practically identical cases, one judge has found in favour of the buyers, and another in favour of the developers.
The conflict, which threatens to complicate an already dejected property market, began with the terminal political crisis that hit the Town Hall last year. For years the town had been fuelling an illegal mechanism that functioned according to its own rule book. For as long as the GIL councils kept hold of municipal power, the corrupt system continued to operate. However on March 29th last year “Operación Malaya” blew up and threw the system into turmoil. The arrest of politicians and business people uncovered a network of fraudulent and complex operations that raised the alarm among buyers. Now the aftershocks are still being felt in the courtrooms. Sources consulted by SUR claim that in Marbella there are more than 200 developments with buyers who are refusing to sign their title deeds in the hope that the courts will free them of their contracts.
Before the Marbella scandal hit the public arena, there were practically no buyers of new properties with cases in the local courts. It was then that they started to look into the legal situation of their new homes and realised that they could be among the victims of this great web of corruption.
Political change
The arrival of the interim committee saw the start of a revision process of building licences; first occupancy licences of illegal properties were explicitly refused and the Town Hall pulled out of lawsuits in which it had been defending the impossible.
Meanwhile the property market had reached a peak after years of continual growth. Some banks started to refuse mortgage loans on properties with an unclear legal situation, obliging buyers to use the mortgage providers contracted by the developers.
Lawyers consulted by SUR warn that the opposing sentences and the lack of common criteria pose a threat to legal safeguards. They agree that the present situation shows a clear flaw in the system, mainly due to the absence of control over the years, and the courts’ delays in hearing the cases of licences challenged by the authorities. They also warn that the consequences for the real estate market could be damaging.