We bought a property near Alcaucin over a year ago. We have all the legal papers and we are connected to all utilities & pay IBI. Recently, we had an offer on the property which we accepted. All went well until the buyers solicitor contacted the Alcaucin Town Hall. They were told that there were "irregularities". The buyers naturally pulled out. This has happened to several prospective sellers on our urbanisation and others locally. We did everything "by the book" when we purchased & contacted our solicitors to find out what had gone wrong. They assured us that our property was completely legal and all the relevant checks had been completed by them & there was nothing to worry about.
Shortly afterwards, we had a meeting with the mayor of Alcaucin along with several other unhappy residents. He told us that the properties were in fact illegal/irregular but this would be resolved in the near future & we would all have to pay a charge/levy to "regularise" the properties. We returned to our solicitor who again repeated that the property was completely legal and to "pay nothing". Recently, we received a demand for 3000 Euros as we paid below the market value for our house and we, apparently should have declared that we paid 40,000 Euros more than we actually paid & the said 3000 was the 7% tax that was due NOW!
Obviously we checked this out before paying any money. (Apparently they can do this after the purchase!)...the point being, they are recognising that we own the house, demading taxes on it etc.....so if it's illegal/irreegular, surely so are the taxes??
Moving on....this is still happening to all the prospective sales in the area....When the lawyers contact the town hall, the town hall are telling them something that sends them rushing away in the opposite direction, tightly clutching their wallets.
What on earth is going on? The property market is in enough of a mess as it is without town halls telling buyers that legal properties are not legal. Do they not realise that they are losing money by doing this? I cannot think of any reason why unless they are hoping we will just all pack up & go home, leaving the properties empty.
Incidentally, a brothel has just been opened at the entrance to our urbanisation. The mayor insists it has a hotel or a restaurant licence and it is not a brothel, depending on who he is talking to. It is quite obvious it's a brothel.....with neon lights portrayiing lips & hearts & the car park is packed around 2am but closed up during the daytime hours.
Obviously the man cannot be trusted to tell the truth so what hope do we have?
I look forward to helpful comments and advice on what to do about this as no one seems to have a resolution.