Editorials
All that illegal property - What should be done?
By h.b.
Feb 5, 2008 - 7:37 PM

EDITORIAL COMMENT

With the story in the Daily Telegraph this week of three more British couples who fear their retirement homes in Turre, Almería could be demolished, it is easier than ever for the British Press to pass negative headlines and comment. The new case is slightly different from others to make the headlines in Vera, Chiclana, Marbella and other places, as it appears that the people concerned purchased land, with a licence to build, but that it was already earmarked some four months beforehand to be used for the construction of a new AVE high speed rail link. Now the compulsory purchase orders are reportedly on the way.

There is a general feeling among both the general public and the local town halls now having to face up to putting their municipalities in order, that those who purchased in good faith should not be penalised. However, as the Mayor of Mijas, Antonio Sánchez,(PSOE) pointed out last week, in some cases the building has been so blatant, in areas of outstanding natural beauty for example, that not all the property can be saved.

Consider too the case of the Los Monteros Urbanisation in Marbella, where the lawyer who is representing the community of owners, Inmaculada Gálvez, claims that the local Town Hall decided deliberately to ignore court orders to demolish. Here the people who purchased in good faith and completely legally have seen their sea-views removed or other inconvenience from the illegal property, and so immediately the case becomes more complicated. They want the demolitions to take place.

Many commentators say it’s a case of the Junta de Andalucia against Marbella Town Hall, and that the Junta is to blame for doing nothing for 15 years. That is not, in fact, correct. The Junta issued official complaints over more than 560 licences in the town over the period of the GIL administration, but in the end the only way demolition can happen is firstly, if a decision comes from the Andalucian High Court of Justice, and secondly, that decision is enforced locally.

The Mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz,(PP) may well have tried to put off some ordered demolitions, and now the Andalucian High Court has agreed and ruled that none should take place until the new PGOU Urban Plan is in place, and realistically that will not be for a couple of years.

In fact, if all this mess is to be put in order across the country, there needs to be firstly greater agility in the drawing up of the new PGOU regulations inline with the POT territorial plans. Perhaps a new specialised judicial office should be established to speed up any appeals that are made against the cases of demolition that do have to be ordered, and that such an office could serve also to speed up the compensation payments?

It would be nice to think that this was an opportunity for corrupt Mayors, lawyers, real estate promoters, and builders to be brought to justice, but without some sort of new body supervising procedures and taking each case one by one, that is unlikely to be the outcome. Tricks of builders claiming bankruptcy and so on should not be permitted, and if the law has to be changed to better protect the innocent, even retrospectively, then so be it.