Illegal property

It's not a scare story, and is a reflection of the true situation, as there are a great many illegal properties.

There's nothing wrong with buying an illegal property, as long as you can assure yourself that it can be legalised, and that the cost of this is reflected in the price.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the hassle, especially as even the legalisation of an illegal property will come with the condition that no further changes will be allowed.

Make sure that whatever you think of buying is fully legal, has a habitation certificate, and that the land registry details for the property exactly agree with what you see.

We bought an illegal property knowing that the local Ayuntamiento were issuing Habitacion Certificates on the installation of an EU approved septic tank. We also wanted to completely gut the inside to bring it into the 21st century so we found a local architect who worked closely with the town hall, had the tank installed and with a major works licence got all the work approved and now have the Habitacion Certificate. We had even had awnings put around our covered terrace which we hadn't realised needed a licence but it is all now rubber stamped.
This is not the same in all areas though so you need to find a local  independent abogado and architect  before you even think about putting a deposit down. Catral seems to have had the most problems due to historical corruption but the houses still sell and people live there quite happily as it's a lovely town.
Various articles put the number of illegal properties in the Community of Valencia at not far short of 500,000 with Alicante having about 120.000. 
The main problem with selling these properties is this lack of a Habitacion Certificate as it puts some people off but there are so many country properties that don't have it that your choice will be quite restricted and the price should reflect the status. Of course, if you want a property with over 10,000 m2 there is no problem.
You need to know exactly what the situation is so you can make a considered choice but steer clear of anything built within a National Park.

Hi Kelvin,

As Jim has said, these are not scare stories.  If you Google something like, "Illegal properties in Catral, Spain" you'll get a whole raft of links.  Similarly, you could Google "Why is property so cheap in Camposol, Mazarron?".  The good thing about the number of British immigrants to these areas is that there's always a lot of anecdotal evidence to help you avoid a similar horror story.

Just to follow on from what Cheryl has said, we looked at many detached properties in the countryside around Catral - they were all illegal builds, but the asking price of most reflected that status.  Some had the new eco-septic tanks already installed, others had not - again, you need to make sure that is reflected in the price.  In the end, we opted for a legal build elsewhere, because we didn't want to be restricted about what we could build on our land - in Catral, that would have been nothing.  And it's not just Catral, there are similar builds in Dolores, Orihuela, Rafal and many more - we looked at them all.  Unless a country property is built on a plot of at least 10,000 sq m, it's best to assume it's illegal, unless a Habitation Certificate is provided to prove otherwise.

Good luck!

Kind regards,

Kim

Our property, which is further North, was also constructed illegally. However, after a great deal of hooha occupying at least 10 years I am told, they were all ‘legalised’ with restrictions. They all have legal septic tanks by the way, it was a question of protected land.

The legal status is ‘Fuera de Ordenacion’. Effectively this means that they will continue to be permitted to exist ie they cannot be demolished, until such time in the dim and distant future when they collapse back into the landscape. No structural alterations are permitted, nor extensions etc etc, nor below ground pools. This is policed to the extent that when we bought the property there was in existence a ‘tank’ type above ground pool. This was set below a bancale, with no sensible means of access, so we constructed a small amount of timber decking around two thirds of it - all in all about 4 sq mt.- to allow us to actually use the pool. Within a couple of days of finishing this, and bear in mind we are miles out in the campo, down inaccessible lanes! - the local Policia arrived with the Aparejador (official quantity surveyor to the Council!) in tow. They demanded to know what building works we had been carrying out and we were thoroughly reprimanded, although not made to dismantle it presumably as it was timber and not very large. We may not make any stone/concrete construction in the garden and Arthur was forbidden a ‘shed’.

Apart from that, its fine and we don’t care!!!! Our abogada did say, however, that should we wish to sell it in the future, banks may be reluctant to grant a mortgage on it, due to the classification.