Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:38am
Never take the word of an estate agent. They are paid by the seller and will say whatever it takes to get the property sold. That said, a lot of people live in illegal properties in Spain, and they do sell, but there is always going to be that query on them which will limit the number of buyers prepared to take a risk. As mentioned before, a country house needs to be in a plot of 10,000 m2, anything less and its "iffy". My understanding is that adding an approved septic tank may get a habitation certificate but it will never be fully legal and there will be severe restrictions on any building works in future because there is already more building on the land than is legal.
Also, Catral is inches above the water table and houses can suffer from damp and mozzies can be troublesome here but that said, many ex-pats live here happily.
Do not use a solicitor recommended by the estate agent under any circumstances and the fact that taxes are being collected on a property does not imply legality.
These problems have been going on for years and I would be really interested to hear the different experiences of those already living in such properties in Catral because I hear of people making their houses fully legal which I understand is impossible, and wonder if they mean that they have had the tank installed and got the Habitacion Certificate, which still doesn´t actually make it legal, more like accepted and not likely to be demolished although it seems Valencia can and do overturn agreements made locally.
Please, all those people with good knowledge about this, is there any definitive guidance available?
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