albert111

We have a house in a Village 29 km from Valencia City and 1.2 km from the
local Village. For the last 8 years we have had a house in an urbanisation called Las Lomas de Los Caballeros, (356 houses). In March we were informed by Local Police; (an officer dumped the leaflets on the road), that the Ajuntamiento or the new Mayor would like to redevelop the urbanisation, with new roads, streetlights, mains sewage and mains water.

1 Our urbanisation of 356 houses has it's own water supply, which is not
declared pure drinking water; we all use it for cooking, coffee and tea.
The urbanisation has never had a water shortage and we have our own
pumping station with 2 employes.
2 90% of the houses have a really high standard with septic or sealed tanks.
3 75% of the roads are Tarmaced but as yet, we do not have street lights.

Los Lomas is a legal urbanisation,(the Mayor admits this), but he says the urbanisation has never been gifted to the council, so therefore the council
never took over the urbanisation, so therefore we have to pay for the new infrastructure.( no other quotes have been sought and the only building firm is one of his friends)
We have now found out the urbanisation was taken over in 1983 by the council with 356 houses and many plots of land.

The mentioned cost of doing this work is estimated at €38 to €50 per sqm of land size; most plots are around 1200sqm; this would be €45.000 to €60.000

Our existing roads have a minimum of 6.5m width, we have never had any problems with traffic. Now, the council (Mayor)wants to widen them to
9m with 1.5m footpath on each side. The only time people are walking in
our street of 24 houses is in August when in the evening, we visit each other.

Now we were informed the council will rip out garden walls and possibly swimming pools to make the roads 9m. The main road from our village to
Bunol is 5.7m the road to Valencia 6.5m

We were informed,if we are unable to find the funding the town council
can take a court order to put our houses up for auction. Normal courts in
Valencia usually take years, but they can push this through in 6 months.

The mayor of our village would like to bring a lot of rural land into the urbanization to build lots more houses. Most of the urban land belongs to his friends and cronies. But they don't have to pay for infrastructure now.
The information we have received from the Mayor and council has been virtually non-existing and lots of lies. Meetings are not properly announced or announced only hours before. Closing dates for replies following meetings are so short that we have no time for objections.

Now I just want to mention 98% of people living on the urbanisation are Spanish and they are more worried than us foreigners, most of them have no way to find this kind of money. Also they know how bad and corrupt the system in Spain(Valencia)is.
The council don't want to apply for funding, so that they will maintain full
control of the situation. In Bunol the same work was done with funding at
a cost of €8000 to 10.000.

Sorry I was blogging on so long. So, if anyone knows how we can fight this
or have any names or addresses which would help, this would be most welcome. We have written to the European MEP.

This Email will be sent to other forums by friends.


Looking forward to any replies, with thanks, Albert111 and the Urbanisation of Las Lomas.

jurdyr

need to set up a Committee, all plans would need two be show , loacl twon hall and think a vote off the loacl Urbanisation sould be done

JLFS

It sound like you all have a fight on your hands, remember the more people i involved in the fight, the more clout you will have.

I have no advice to give, only good wishes for the task ahead.

It is so unjust that these things happen, and unfortunatly the more that is heard about these cases, the less impact each one seems to have.

A lot of these cases are not even newsworthy nowadays, and it is some times forgotten that every story in the press, is an actual event in the lives of the poor people involed.


Lets hope you can sort this sorry mess out.

LittleWeed

If you not already done so, I´d suggest contacting this group;

http://www.abusos-no.org/

What you describe sounds rather like "land grab" and this group were established to campaign against it.

Good luck !

Fred James

No I don't think it is "land grab" - that's an entirely different thing. The only land that is being "grabbed" in this case is the boundaries to extend the width of the road and that is an always present risk.

There are many "old" urbanisations in Spain which are essentially "illegal" as they have never been taken on by the local town hall. In many cases no "habitation certificates" have ever been issued.

What is now happening is that they are trying to bring these urbs into the system and that means that they have to conform to the same rules that would apply if you were building a new urb. As you probably know, under the current rules, the whole infrastructure, lighting, road, sewerage, underground cabling, has to be in place before the builder can lay a single brick.

This can be a seriously expensive proposition. I know of one locally where they were originally talking about a cost of €100k per house. This has subsequently been renegotiated at a more reasonable figure.

I have some friends who are going through this process in Nerja and they are looking at at least €10k.

I do believe, however, that the council may allow an extended payment period for those that cannot afford it and the loan, of course, would have to be paid if the property was sold.

It appears to be a perfectly legal procedure and apart from the hardship to those involved, one can see the reasons for it.

The best solution is to challenge the proposed costs rather than challenge the legality and insist on an agreement for extended payments.

jojojojojo

I dont know much about all this, but I do know from a friend/gestor that at the moment Brussels are watching Spain and its corruption issues very closely, partly due to all this EU deficit business. So anything thats slightly corrupt or "not right" should somehow be brought to the attention of the media?? government?? Brussels?????? As high up and as loud as you can get?


Jo xxx

cricketman

Yes, you'd have to prove it is corrupt first. Very difficult, especially considering the OP may have been effectively living in illegal housing for past so many years.

I think Fred James offered very good advice

jackytoo

As Fred says it seems to be perfectly legal. Have heard of a few cases of 1970/80 urbanisations on the CDS going through the same procedure. Think the ayuntamientos have found this loophole as a new cash cow.

snikpoh

I think my first question to you (albert111) would be, do you have a certificate of habitation?

If not, then I think they can do what they like including charge various taxes etc. retrospectively.

albert111

Thanks for your replies. Out of 365 houses only 7 are illegally built. some of this 7 houses have not been lived in for years. The rest of the houses all have
certificates of habitation. We all pay our taxes to the and Basura to the
Ajuntamiento.
We have been informed that our urbanization has been legal since 1983. We
have a committee; the president is a really nice old man, but like most of the old spanish residents he does not believe this will happen. Most of the
younger spanish residents will fight against this cause.
You are correct, nobody is allowed to build any new houses on the urbanization until the infrastructure has been completed. This is one of the reasons we believe he would like to push this through without funding from the Government or the E.U.
We also believe that certain people in the village would make a financial killing.
Albert111

michaleen oge

good luck with your problems mate. seems you have one thing on your side. as stated,the overwhelming majority of the residents on this urbanization are spanish and as such will know the ins and outs of the legalities involved.
my own feelings are that the authorities will levy a sum which will be affordable and amenable to all. just watch out for the "interested and vested" parties in the village. therein lies your main problem. good luck.