Jenny1328

I came across the following news yesterday and was wondering if anyone knows anything about these new developments?

September 6th 2006
Owners of properties that have been built in Chiclana without building licences may be in for some good news according to Costa Del Sol News Online. The town hall says it can begin to make properties legal after the summer, although the town planning department does not expect to be inundated with applications during this voluntary period. The aim is to legalise 20,000 properties and to achieve this, the town hall has signed agreements with the College of Architects and the College of Building Overseers and Technical Architects, who will help owners with the technical aspect of the process, and with Unicaja bank who will offer loans to help people pay the costs.
The properties must have been built before 1998, and must be in one of the nine ‘areas de gestión básica’ defined in the local development plan (PGOU). To initiate the legalisation process, owners must produce the certificate to show they are on the ‘padrón’ (municipal population register), proof of ownership of the property, proof that they are registered for IBI tax, and documents which show how old the house is, as well as the contracts for electricity and water.

Chiclanagir

Not a lot of good news for those of us built after 1998!

EsuriJohn

Hi Jenny,

I thought the big problem was if you wer'nt legal you could not get electricity, but you need to show you have electricity to be made legal. Catch 22.

Regards,

John.

poollounger

But the traditional way was for the architect to certify that the house was built before the required period. And most of the country houses in Chiclana have no mains water or sewage. Confusion still reigns supreme.

Fred James

One problem is that the Junta have been using use satellite pictures for some time now which can easily show when the house was actually built as opposed to what the architect says (lies) about it.

poollounger

This makes sense. I was shown a property for restoration, and told that provided the aerial shot was contained within the existing footprint, I could do what I liked. The living space could have been built out into the permanent porch, and a retractable awning provided instead, was one suggestion.

paddy07

How is that good news

Dxf

To reply to the original post, my neighbour (Spanish) has just received her first IBI bill (108 euros). At the time of "legalising" the property split, she also did mine, so I am hopeful that my property will be declared legal in the not too distant future. Dave in Pago

paddy07

your property does not become legal just because you pay your IBI

poollounger

Maybe this has been covered before...but how do you know if your property is actually legal or not ??? Does the existence of the escritura ratified before a notary prove this ??? I know people have posted previously re various requirements, but there are so many variables. For instance one cannot get a Licencia de Primera Occupacion in a non urbanised area, as these can only be issued for properites that have mains water and sewage etc etc, usually urbanisations. Mine says that it was built under a Licencia de obra nueva...do others have this and are still illegal??? What are the criteria for legality and illegality, providing , of course, the property has not been built on white land.
And even then I am told it could be legal, if there was a previous building on the plot, and the new one has not exceeded the footprint!!

Fred James

Not necessarily true. There are many properties built on rustic land that are perfectly legal and have a Licencia de Primera Occupacion.

I have just such a property and it doesn't have mains water or sewerage.

The normal process for a legal build is to get a Certificado Final de Obra from the achitect. You then register the building on the Catastral register. You then request the occupation licence from the town hall which may involve an inspection of the property to ensure that it was built as per the building licence.

Once the certificate has been issued you can then complete a Declaration de Obra Nueva at the notary which will get you a new Escritura de Obra Nueva with details of the building added. The paperwork then goes to the land registry and it is entered on the registry.

Without a Licencia de Primera Occupacion, the Electricity company cannot legally connect the supply. They can disconnect an existing builders supply when it is no longer required for the purpose of construction.

This process may vary slightly from place to place but the need for the occupation licence to get a supply applies nationally. The electricty contract has to show the licence number.

poollounger

Now this is interesting, because a fellow expat took all the documentation and postings on various websites to her local bank manager who she trusted implicitly, who told her the opposite, that a Ld P could not be issued for the reasons I stated. I was also told that it was not neccessary as there had been a house on my plot previously. We certainly have an escritura, the house is listed as Obra Nueva, the escritura took ages to arrive via the bank as it had to be listed on the land registry. The aforementioned manager also said that even within areas of Chiclana there were discrepancies...and there were situations with people being not illegal, but semi legal. Perhaps this unwillingness to be straitjacketed into any kind of uniformity is one of the traits that makes Spain so attractive..if we wanted everything to operate within a millimetre we would all be buying houses in Germany!!

YMF

Like you poolounger we are trying to unravel the mysteries of legal or not and finding it is not a black and white situation.

We pay our electricity bill direct to Endesa, are named on the fractura but are not the Titular, our builder says we have nothing to worry about and all will be sorted out in the fullness of time and when Chiclana town council get organised.

We are currently in the initial stages of a 902 application, the architect has been out to make the measurements, we will then get a detailed plan of the land and the dimensions of all structures on it.

When we came to buy a property here we had no idea about the electricity situation and the first thing the agent showing us the property did was to point out the meter and tell us how good it was to have an electricity meter. We were puzzled at the time why this was such a bonus...........now we know!

I also wonder if the name of the title holder of the electricity account makes any difference to if you will be cut off or not? Maybe some companies/builders have more power than others?

Hopefully one day soon we will all be sorted out, what I dont like to see is people scare mongering about things that they may not have full information.

Yvonne

Chiclanagir

La Luz magazine are asking for people who are having problems to contact them so they can do an article in the future. This could be a good idea as hopefully they could get the full picture as to what is really correct. Everybody has a different opinion and unless we have a precise quote from an official at the Town Hall and Endessa we are all really in the dark.

poollounger

Glynis, and even then it may be a case of which Endesa official is making the pronouncement !! Like YMF we were told that we had our own meter, it even says it in the contract, and indeed we do. All we need to clarify on our next visit is the meter number on the re-issued bill and whether it corresponds to an amount we have been charged. These forums are very helpful and constructive, but can also cause a lot of scaremongering. A bit like looking up medical symptoms on the internet, when one begins to imagine the worst. YMF I was talking to a woman in the Florentina who had gone to the expense of the plans etc that you mention, having been advised that that was the way to go. When she presented it to the town hall, I believe it was so she could be registered for the IB tax, she was told she needn't have bothered and would be billed in the fullness of time.
I have every sympathy with those who have no elex and how uncomfortable that must be, and was upset at the thought of possibly being cut off in my absence and the plants dying through lack of water. Then I considered that my neighbour would probably give them a drink or two until my next visit. And then there was the news footage about those poor people in Africa and the terrible floods wrecking their homes, their crops, their livestock, their foodsource and I am simply not worrying another iota. Que sera sera.