bolton wanderer

Hi,
This is my first post... Please be gentle.

We’re a recently retired couple (late 50s) and currently staying in Pego (Valencia). We've spent the last few months looking at different areas in Spain with a view to buying or long term renting.

We’ve just viewed a lovely 2 storey house within a small plot of agricultural land (1300M2). The vendor also owns the plot of land adjacent the house (3000M2) and there is another plot (500M2) at the rear owned by someone else. Access to these 2 plots runs alongside the house. The house has mains water & electricity and the plot is on a street lit tarmac road.

I've had a look at the catastral online and it looks like the house is classed as 2 apartments. At the moment there’s no internal staircase and just 4 small bedrooms and a very small toilet upstairs. Would this be a big problem to rectify legally? (The house was built in 1940 and the upper extension was added about 15 years ago) Would we be charged 2 sets of IBI/taxes?

There is a castral reference number for the house and also one for the land, is this normal? The land is designated rustic/agricultural and the house is designated urban with residential use.

Our main concern is the reputation of the Valencian Junta for allowing land grab. The land behind the agricultural plots is classed as urban but currently being used for agriculture and, according to the online PGOU, the agricultural land surrounding the house is classed as “Urbanizable residencial”. What are the implications of this?

Apologies for the length of this post but we’d really appreciate your advice, views or opinions.
Thanks in anticipation.
Phi[/SIZE]

Rosemary

As Concierge for the Spanish section of BE I would like to say hello and welcome.

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Rosemary__________________

Rosemary

Yes, if your house is down as two apartments there will be two local community tax bills.

Rosemary

cricketman

There are so many alarm bells here then I would walk away

There are millions of properties for sale in Spain, for me, it wouldnt be worth the risk. I am sure you can find one that is much more straight forward legally

agoreira

I don't know the first thing about buying and selling, but reading your post, my first thought, as Meme would say, next! There must be properties about without all the potential pitfalls, reminds of a recent post where someone was asking about buying an illegal house because the seller had told them it could be easily legalised.

Lynn R

I agree with the other views expressed - there are too many potential pitfalls here. As well as the two IBI bills issue, the right of access to agricultural land running alongside the house would bother me - would you really want agricultural machinery coming past the house (they start work early and carry on until late at harvest times, don't forget!) and also the classification of "urbanizable" land surrounding the house. That means that at some time in the future more development could take place (and you have no idea at this stage what kind of development that might be, or how much, and most important, you could be hit with a large bill as the owner of a plot of land in the area for making it "urban".

bolton wanderer

Thank you all for your advice and comments..... I think that we’ll walk away from this one.
We were more worried about the possibility of the land being taken from us, to be used by a developer, than the access & IBI issue. We had hoped (naively) that the land may have provided a buffer to any future development, which is bound to take place as the house is only 100M from the village.

Also, looking at the tax implication of becoming residents, I think that we’ll rent....Just how do the Spanish authorities know that you're in Spain for longer than 183 days?

Thanks again,
Phil

Dick Dasterdly

They don't.

Longlegpete

Yep, run a mile, it's not worth the risks, the first thing my solicitor said to me when we were looking to buy was " first you must make sure the property in on urbanised land,I would strongly recommend you only ever buy on urbanised land" , very wise words