Hi can anyone help had a pool put in and paid one thousand sight hundred euroes to find no licence we are selling our property and need one this is five years now any advice would be greatly appreciated 

thanks 

It looks like your saying you paid 1800€ to get a pool licence and never got one even after 5 years.

My advice is...You should have done something about this straight away, not wait 5 years and then ask for advice, but then you know that.

Hi I did try tried the people who put the pool in for over a year to start with nothing but promises it was coming then tried town hall time and again but I’ve asked for advice as how to get one not criticism thanks 

If your question is "how do I obtain a retrospective building licence for my swimming pool"?  These sorts of issues are usually easily sorted by a visit to you local gestor/gestoria. 

You don't say whereabouts you live but there's one or two in every reasonably sized town in Spain.  I've used Zamora in Mazarron - very helpful and a fraction of the price of using a solicitor.  The total cost, including the licence, should be around €200 or so, dependant on the area.

Hi thanks do you know if there will be a problem as the pool has been in for five years the area is lazenia 

Thanks Thelma 

I've learnt in Spain that you cannot make sweeping statements about lots of things, including how town halls deal with this kind of situation.  But having unlicensed swimming pools is common place as solicitors regularly overlook new builds.  Of course they love to find fault when acting for subsequent purchasers.  All part of the games Spanish solicitors play (with a few exceptions).

There's a fudge in that in some parts of Spain a licence would not be required if you can prove that it's been in existence for a certain number of years - I think this ranges from 4 to 15 years.  But in practice it seems to be that once the solicitor acting for the purchaser flags the omission it becomes a necessity to avoid the risk of losing the sale. 

But you can have a conversation with your local gestor who will be able to tell you the price immediately.

Thal

If you are using an agent then you could ask them to sort it.  

However it is the town hall who would have approved the work and issued the building licence, and then would have increased the catastral value and if appropriate in your municipality, the IBI  

You may find you have a penalty to pay, back taxes and maybe a fine too

Who is the pool company are they still in business. I would use legal to chase them as they will need to give you paperwork ( architect drawings, guarantee) for your deeds and your pool must still be under warranty. I would use a gestoria as advised. 

Hi The architect can’t seem to find my paper work the company was amber pools and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere with any of them my agents have made a appointment with the town hall on our behalf 

thanks  Thelma

Hello Thelma

Are you sure architect drawings, planning permission and a licence ever existed or was it just a hole dug in the ground with tiles and water?

Was told it was legitimate we paid one thousand eight hundred for architect and licence so I hope it wasn’t a con as company still operating I would not like to think this happened to other customers as if that’s the case they would be conning people out of a lot of money apart from the costs for putting the pool in 

thanks Thelmai

Thal

As I said, the townhall building dept would have issued a licence, had the builder done it legally / correctly   That would probably have meant your catastral value would have increased and thus your IBI  bill.  I believe you would also have needed to have the construction registered at the Property Registry so that it shows on the record (deeds) of your property.

Asking at the town hall is the simple way to know what was or was not done 

Thanks that’s what our consultants are going to do they have made an appointment with them hopefully we will find out what’s what 

Thanks Thelma

We had a pool put in by Amber Pools (Steve Toomey) about 10 years ago.  We sold it last year and our solicitor advised it wasn't a problem not having a licence.  Buyer was quite happy as well, so maybe don't worry about getting a licence.

You may well be correct Rosemary Llamacalmer, in Spain licences are just irrelevant bits of ink on paper. But it’s always important to charge the customer the licence and administration fees. Seems the OP paid someone €1800, but seems like Thelma has now done a runner.

I think you have got this wrong it was me Thelma that paid €1800 to the person putting in the pool for the architects drawings, plans and the license. I certainly haven’t done “a runner” in fact exactly the opposite I’m here to resolve the matter hence my original post.

if you can’t be of any help then please refrain from replying to the topic....thank you.

Hello Thelma

So please give us the full final story of what’s what?

You don't really need any help Thelmai, you left it for 5 years before you have decided to do anything about getting any licence for this pool, all the answers you need are in your own post yet you are expecting forum members to come up with some sort of magical answer.

So OK here is the full story

We decided to get a pool put in. We looked around at various companies that could do the Job. A Neighbour recommended that we use a certain company as they were very pleased with the work they had done and so we went with their recommendation.

During the initial consultation with the company we were given a quote for the work to be done and also told that €1800 would have to be paid to the architect for the plans, drawings and the license.

We did this

After completion of the pool we waited for the license and other paperwork to arrive…and we waited….and we waited.

After many phone calls to the company and all the promises of they would get it sorted still there was nothing.

Due to personal circumstances we decided to move back to the UK and sell up in Spain. We employed a solicitor to act on our behalf. An offer was made on our property and the usual checks were done. Obviously the pool wasn’t on the Esquitura due to the lack of paperwork that was supposed to have been done by the company we had do the Pool. Our solicitor eventually managed to get the phone number of the architect that was supposed to have done the plans etc. and low and behold they couldn’t find any paperwork. 

To say that I haven’t done anything about this is completely wrong. I was constantly on the phone to the company that did the pool. In hind sight I should have maybe got legal advice earlier but because of the persistent promises made by the company concerned I was led to believe that they had the matter in hand. Oh how wrong was I.