lovingthesun

A Spanish friend has informed me that if I wish to sell my my house that I am obliged, under Spanish law, to give my neighbour first refusal to buy it - can anyone confirm if this is true please?

Fred James

lovingthesun

Oh okay - I AM in the campo but never heard of this before!

lyric030250

Can you elaborate Fred ? One is a campo dweller, looking to sell, and this is the first I have ever heard of this.

missile

Learnt something new. How does that work?

Leper

. . . . . Good God! . . . only in Spain!

spainrico

That's a new one on me and I have been around a long time. I know if you have a tenant in a property you own they must be offered first refusal if you decide to sell whilst they are in situ. So what is the process? What if you have several neighbours? Sounds a nightmare.

Fred James

This was published in Sur in English sometime ago.

Spanish law establishes a special provision for rustic properties whose area does not exceed one hectare whereby the owners of neighbouring properties are granted preferential acquisition rights.
This means that any owner of property adjacent to that which you would like to purchase has preference over you provided that the same conditions apply in the relevant purchase-sale contract. However as stated above this preferential acquisition right refers to rustic plots whose surface area does not exceed one hectare and is not applicable under any circumstances to adjacent properties separated by streams, ditches, ravines, access roads or easements to which other properties are entitled.

Owners of neighbouring plots can exercise their preferential acquisition rights at the time of your signing a purchase-sale contract as this is a right to purchase which they have over you provided that the remaining clauses of the contract which you intend to enter into with the owner of the plot remain unchanged.

In all other cases, preferential rights can only be exercised in a period of nine days following the date of registration of the new ownership of the property purchased in the relevant Land Registry. After this date the owners of neighbouring farms cannot claim any preferential right over the property which you have bought.

However you should also bear in mind that if the purchase-sale operation is not registered, the nine-day period commences as from the date when the neighbours have knowledge of the sale.

Furthermore the relevant jurisprudence has foreseen the possibility of anomalies and claims made in bad faith by persons who, having known of the intended sale, have not claimed their preferential right and therefore to cover this eventuality it is stated that the nine-day period as from the date of registration is only applicable when there is no record of prior knowledge of the intended purchase-sale. It is nevertheless a requisite that must be proven without a doubt that the neighbour had knowledge of the intended sale before registration takes place and that he/she was also aware of all of the terms and circumstances in which said sale took place.

Landwell
Tax and Legal Advisors
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mikelincs

Sounds like the OP needs competent legal advice.

ononno

Nope - Italy as well. If the property is catastato as agricultural all neighbouring properties have first refusal.
' lluego,
'o nonno

lovingthesun

Well I'm not actually ready to sell my property at the the moment, though will probably have to do so within the next couple of years due to difficulties living in the campo as I get older and, to be honest, would have no problem if my neighbour DID want to buy it, it's just that I'd never heard of this so thanks for the clarification Fred James.

dmu

France, too, and not only neighbouring property-owners. Any agricultural land for sale is first offered to all local farmers...

Fred James

It's possibly so common as many European countries have their law based on the "Code Napoleon" and if it applies in France there is a good chance that it will apply in many more.

Fredbargate

I first came across something similar in Portugal

ononno

I've been quite surprised by how many people don't realise that many countries in the EU are governed by legislation based on the Napoleonic Code. They include Belgium and Brussels, which is why so much EU legislation doesn't sit well with Anglo Saxon concepts of Common Law. Brought up and schooled living with Common Law as part of our lives we say 'if it isn't against the law, it's a free country, and we can do whatever we please as long as it doesn't harm anybody else'.
On the other hand, the Napoleonic Codes do exactly the opposite. Every possible aspect of daily living is codified by Civil and Penal codes. So you have to say to yourself 'if there isn't a law that permits what I want to do, it is against the law', and lobbying starts for a law to be passed that makes legal whatever it is you want to achieve. Of course in France, Italy, Spain, as soon as new EU regulations are introduced they say 'right, so now we must be able to find a way round it'. In Whitehall they say 'right, now how do we go about applying this'.
Food for thought.
'lluego
'o nonno