SamWard

My husband and I signed a contract in May 2016 for an off-plan property from one of Spain's oldest and most reputable builders, planning a dream move to Mallorca from Canada under the Golden Visa program.

At the time we signed the reservation contract in April, the villa was nearly completed and was to be handed over to us in July. We added an optional pool and paid a 50% deposit on it when we signed the deposit contract in May.

At that time we agreed to provide the builder with an extension to mid October to complete the pool because they could not do any excavation until early September and during high season for tourists.

A few days before the scheduled closing of the deal, they said the pool was nearly complete and for us to have the funds ready in our Spanish bank account. We complied and took a heavy loss on currency conversion as the $CDN to Euro was at its lowest point.

As it turned out the builder was unable to complete the sale because they had not obtained the completion certificate for the pool - at least that's what we were told. They said it would take up to 2 months to get this done.

We are now in mid December and it has come to light that the builder did not even apply for a permit to build the pool! And to the best of our knowledge has not done so since mid October.

That's all beside the fact that they have been trying to trick and coerce us into completing the sale with an "illegal" pool on the property so that all of the potential fines and penalties and possibly remedial work to return the property to its former state becomes our problem.

Needless to say, we have refused to close against the advice of our lawyer who was also pushing us to close. There seems to be no set date or end in sight for this situation to be resolved.

Needless to say, we are completely lost... our lives are up in the air... I quit my job in July to get ready for the move in October. I can not go back to work and we can not even apply for our Golden Visa because there's no firm date, after having met all the requirements and submitting some of the documents to our solicitor twice for the July and October dates.

Frankly, we are shocked and very disappointed that after all the efforts of the Spanish and Balearics governments to weed out illegal constructions, even one of Spain's oldest and supposedly most reputable builders is still doing this.

But what's even worse is that we don't know if there is any recourse or legal procedures to deal with this. Our lawyer is still dealing with the client relations department of this builder and being nice and accommodating is not what this situation requires!

On that note, we need some help and advice on what we should do. Even knowing if there are others like us out there or if this is an isolated situation and an honest mistake would help.

Not knowing what's going on and what's going to happen has been very stressful to me and my husband. He is basically suffering from insomnia at this point and I had my first ever panic attack a couple of days ago and cried all day. We're both in our 40's!

If you're out there and you can help or you know someone who can, please reach out to us.

Thank you in advance,
Samantha

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

SamWard

Thank you for the warm welcome Rosemary... we are very much looking forward to benefit from the wealth of knowledge on the forum and of course contribute to that knowledge once we move to Spain and actually gain some!

Fredbargate

Welcome to Spain

Probably the most corrupt country in Europe

Fred James

Sadly, this is a common occurrence in Spain. I assume that the villa had a valid building licence before it was started. You really need to check that, but it probably did.

The key point is whether the builder avoided applying for a licence because he knew one would not be granted, or whether he couldn't be bothered.

If the latter, there should be no problem, assuming that the town hall would have issued a license in the first place. One thing worth checking is whether other established properties on the development do have pools, if so that would tend to indicate that there is no basic restriction on building a pool.

It used to be very common to build and then apply later to avoid the delays inherent in the planning process.

You need to insist that the lawyer checks with the town hall and assuming that they are happy with adding a pool, that the necessary licence is applied for.

If you build an illegal pool, there is a fair chance it will go unnoticed initially, but eventually someone, usually in a helicopter flying around for just that purpose will spot it.

If so, if it could be subsequently approved, no problem apart from a fine, but if not you would receive a fine and a demolition order for the pool (for demolition, read fill it in).

Another potential problem is that in the course of the building process, a final certificate has to be issued by the architect to confirm that the building conforms to the original submitted "project". Sometimes an inspection is carried out which would show up the illegal pool. In which case the final certificate would be invalid and the most important piece of paper of all (the licence of first occupation) would not be issued by the town hall. Without that the building cannot be legally occupied and a new escritura for the property could not be issued and it could not be put on the official register of properties.

Maur-Ross

So so sorry for you. I hope folk here can help. Please keep us updated

johnnyone

Who recommended your Lawyers? ie are they totally independent of the builder/developer. There are some very cosy relationships between developers/agents and lawyers.
If there are commercial links between them seek out another totally independent lawyer for advice.

MikeJ

I don't know if it is possible (and I certainly wouldn't act on my post without checking it out) Could you separate the dwelling issue from the pool issue (by designating the pool as an irrigation reservoir or tank ??) and then completing the deal on your property in order to get your completion certificate and thus be able to get utilities connected and move in. Obviously not paying for the pool.
Then sort out the pool using a retrospective planning application.

I have heard of this being done but cannot find any references at the moment.

Rosemary

I thought of that too when I first read the post and then wondered why the builder had not done that in October. Then of course I started to wonder if it was because he already knew that it would never be approved so was trying hard to pull the wool over the buyers eyes.

Rosemary

Fred James

It might be possible if it was built on rustic rather than urban land, but that is unlikely as it is almost impossible to build on rustic land now unless the plot is very large.

We built our house 13 years ago and our pool is officially a water depósito for irrigation with approved dual use for "recreational purposes", so it is possible but we were on rustic land with water supplied from an agricultural cooperative.

missile

I would be looking for another lawyer (Abogado). We fired our first, as she was incompetent.

You might be able to contact the town hall and ask them regarding pool planning approval?

Be careful to check builder does not have loans outstanding which he may have secured on the property before completion.