Illegal or just a huge Con?

How can this be allowed to happen in a civilized society? Why do these decent honest folk suffer while the real criminals who all had a hand in this illegal practice -, the Mayors, the College of Architects, the Town Hall, the Lawyers, the Builders and the Agents all feather their own nests to the detriment of their victims. This is yet another nail in the Spanish monetary coffin – do they think the rest of the world won’t notice this barbaric action? Simple advice DON’T BUY IN SPAIN – YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DIDN’T.

Extract from Euronews:

THOUSANDS of homes could be at risk of demolition for being illegally built.

Malaga provincial government has calculated that there are more than 90,000 homes in Andalucia that are incorrectly registered or that could not be registered due to being built illegally on land which was not for construction purposes.

Mayors from 10 of Malaga’s municipalities, among them Marbella and Fuengirola, have been given a list of buildings which should not have been built. It is now up to each individual council to decide what to do about the situation.

Just in the province of Malaga there are 3,101 constructions which may be deemed illegal and knocked down, as happened to the pictured house in the Andalucian town of Cantoria.

Elias bendodo, president of the Diputacion, commented that there were a lot more than he was expecting but added that many of them, up to 80 per cent in his opinion, could be “regularised” and would only have to pay a fine instead of being knocked down. Others, commented Bendodo, were on land that was too close to the beach or in contrast with planning regulations and would have to go altogether.

Bendodo promised that each case would be studied individually by the councils and a decision would be reached with the help of the Diputacion.

While its pretty obvious that 90 thousand house's wont be knocked down it's still possible that a good few  could be, wouldn't it be a better bet for the many who control this sort of thing to take a very long look at the possible financial loss over this, possibly in the region of 25 million€ or more i.e., as we all know, council tax, electric, water, refurbishments, etc etc, the list is endless if they were to lose this amount of house's, and this is no where near taking into consideration another round of extra bad publicity that Spain don't need at the moment.

Who would pay any fines imposed if the many were "Regularised" anyway? after all  chances are many builders and developers have long gone, so have many corrupt local officials,  so does this then leave the house owner to pay any fine if they approve of the house and leave it standing,  just to chase these fines up alone means another round of fee's to be paid out..By someone.. to the legal profession and such like, and of course many more years of uncertainties for home owners, which it seems on the face of it Spain like's to do.

Doesn't it seem more practical just to leave the house's standing, block anymore building in these areas that the governments don't like to be developed, let the world know Spain wont ever do this again,  and keep on taking the money that home owners generate....Or is this to simple.

It's a bit too simple for Spain  Baz - they would have to change the system and this may mean the loss of a few make work jobs and possibly the loss of a political department or two. Even if the figure of 20% of the total have to be demolished as claimed by Elias Bendodo that would still be 18,000 buildings to be demolished in just one part of Spain - like a clean-up operation after a war.

I can't believe that the authorities are so stupid that they would even release this information to feed the world's press. Spanish legislation and polititcs are once again making a fool of themselves for all to see. If the EU is really the best thing for Europe - surely they can control Spain and weed out the corrupt bands of vultures that use the crazy systems in place to make fortunes and then issue instructions contrary to thir original agreements - somebody needs to act fast as its been going on for years here and it is now just an accepted hazard of buying in Spain.

There are very simple solutions to these problems if the authorities want to resolve matters to everyones satisfaction but the bulldozer isn't one of them.

There is quite a funny article in RT, which is primarily about the problems of buying property on Israeli occupied Paletinian land. Apparently the Spanish Foreign Ministry website discourages Spaniards from buying there because the owners might encounter ownership problems in the future. So far so good.

But it was the punchline made me smile: " In case of litigation, it could be very difficult for member states to guarantee the protection of their interests,” the Spanish statement said."

I don't think you have to buy as far away as Palestine for EU member states to fail to guarantee the protection of their citizens' interests. And for Spain to pretend otherwise is risible.

http://rt.com/news/168912-spain-italy-israeli-settlements/