License for First Occupation in established property

We bought our place  in the campo (Pizarra) 5 years ago. It is a relatively old property built some 60-70 years ago. The water company have just brought mains water to our area but will not allow us to have an account without a License of First Occupation. We have gone back through the lawyers and previous owners but are unable to trace this document. We have mains electricity and changed the account when we bought our place.

We have now been going around in circles for some 12 months trying to get over this hurdle. It seems to me that LFO is something that is issued on more recent properties to certifiy its legitimacy prior to having utilities connected but not necessarily applicable to older established properties.

Does anyone have any advice on how we may get around this? The water company have all of the other documents and are happy to issue and account and water once we have the LFO.

Have you spoken to your local Town Hall?

Since they would be the authority to issue the Licencia, they should be in a position to advise what requirements should be met.

Could be that if you carried out any reformation to the property , a simple inspection by a technical architect is all that is required to ensure that the work carried out is in accordance with planning requests previously submitted. This inspection would lead to the architect releasing a Cerificado de Obras Final which you should submit to the Town hall for issue of the LFO.

Either way the Town Hall should be your first step

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Thanks for the input. We went to them early on in this and they insisted that there would be the appropriate document somewhere and that they could not issue anything to replace this. I hadn't thought about getting the document for a change to our place that would act in its place, though this seems extreme for what is required.

Hi all. We have a similar problem with the requirement for a Licence of First Occupation (LFO), but with an electricity supply problem, not water (we only have well water). My husband and I brought a house in a rustic but not isolated area of Alhaurin de la Torre, Málaga in 2003, the house was built about 10-15 years before. The English couple we purchased from extended the property some years before we purchased. They said fines were paid for this before we purchased. We employed a local well known firm of solicitors to complete the purchase for us with full power of attorney (we were in UK at the time). The solicitors were to check all was legal in every way and change utilities to our name. All appeared to go well. Then in January 2011, this year, we received a letter from Endesa saying we only had temporary electricity... for over 15 years?? Between Endesa and the Town Hall we are now being asked for the LFO together with every document under the sun from the property's original construction plans. Our solicitor insists that he did everything correctly in 2003 and that the FLO was not applicable then. We have been told that we will be cut off in May 2011 if we can't produce these documents. Some are possible (we pay IBI, the house is in the Land Registry, has an esctritura etc and we have had a new electic boletin prepared at a cost of over Euros 2,000.00), but because so many properties have some aspect of illegality about them in rustic areas here LFOs are not being issued. (We have applied for one now, but been told it will not be issued - administrative silence will not be happening as the Town Hall have written to us, so have not been silent!)). We have heard that some families locally and in nearby Coín have in fact now had their electricity cut off, even though they have paid their bills. There is complete uproar here with no common sense prevailing with the authorities and over 400 families affected now. Surely there should be some transitional laws to capture cases like ours? We are continuing the battle with our solicitor and sometime battling with him. We have a beautiful house which we believed to be legal when we purchased which will be virtually inhabitable if something as basic  as electricity is removed. Anyone else having this problem or found a solution?

 I would advise you to look into possible time limits for sanctions and legalisation and of course on local regulations for administrative silence in the area. The fact that the Local Council has answered does not always break the possibilities of administrative silence as they need to specifically answer on the application for the license.

I have a similar issue,I didnt realise at the time but I didnt have a license when first purchased.I have main electicity and water and after 5 years although the bank had agrees to dation en pago now that they cannot find a license it has been rejected.Is there no way of obtaining this license when several houses have already been sold privately?,is this license not required for resales?,Another bank completed the dation on my neighbours house with no license why arent all banks following the same rules?

If the property has no license and the Bank granted a mortgage on this, even more obligued to accept the dation.

Maria I have PM'd you

Thanks for all of the input to this. We have gone back to our lawyers who arranged the purchase of our place. They are quite clear that the LFO is not an essential part of a property sale. They think that the Town Hall should issue an alternate document that the water company should accept.

We seem to be going around in circles at the moment but we will see what happens and I'll keep you posted.

PROBE

http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/licence-first-occupation.aspx