Notaries and Registrars have historically been guarantoors of the private side of legalities related to property ownership: Owner, title, loans and encumbrances, means of payments, correct registration of ownership to give public faith of these private transactions before third parties.
Even in Land Act of 2007 it was not clear that Notary and Registrar must require First Occupation License to authorize / register deeds of end of works.
Notaries wrote an online guide by that time where they wondered about this requisite of the article on End of Works deeds:
b ) the documentary evidence of compliance with all requirements imposed by the legislation regulating the building to deliver it to their users
What document does this refer to? They guessed then:
Ten-years obligatory building insurance? Habitation License? Book of the building?
It was in 2011 , when Land Act started too mention specific obligations of Notaries and Registrars in regards to checking on Urban legalities. Then in 2013, these obligations were made much more precise and clear:
Notaries :
New building deed:
- WORK LICENSE + TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION OF PROJECT BEING SET TO LICENSE
End of Works deed:
- TECHNICAL CERTIFICATE OF END OF WORKS + TEN YEARS INSURANCE + BOOK OF THE BUILDING + ENERGY EFFICIENCY CERTIFICATE + FIRST OCCUPATION LICENSE
Registrars:
They need to verify all requirements above before registering the end of works deed.
When registering finished works they need to verify very strictly on existence of any urban irregularity.
So, in short words, it is not till June 2013 that the Land Registry offers a high level of safety in regards of the planning/zonning status of houses. For all houses built and registered before then, a good independent lawyers is necessary for verifying those aspects.
Demolitions? Possibly not as many as the press mentions and always a claim being possible against Local Councils is they issued licenses against Regional Urban Rules.
Sierra of Grazalema, Cádiz, South of Spain, at facebook.com