Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I understand you are viewing properties on an urbanisation and as you say it is unlikely you will have issues with illegal properties and/or land grab.

That most definitely is an extension which would require planning approval. Be careful. If has not been done correctly it may never get retrospective approval.

Your solicitor ought to have told you there is no equivalent to the permitted development rules applicable in the UK.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Here, you can just go to the local Registro de Propriedad with the address or Poligono and Parcela of the property, the owner's name or NIF, and for €6 get a complete report of the history of the house and ownership, what land it covers, what buildings it has on it, their size, number of rooms, their purpose, whether it has water end electricity, and what building permits have been issued it its entire history.

I'd recommend this as a first step to anyone looking to buy or sell your property. At least you'll know what the local government believes it to be.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Our solicitor isn't aware of the specifics of any properties we might be interested in, we have only had an initial meeting with her in order to have a solicitor to hand when needed.

The firm is on the list given by the British Consulate website. We haven't come across anyone prepared to recommend a solicitor so this seemed to be our best option for choosing someone with local knowledge.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I have no hesitation in recommending Silvia Galve:

Legal & Financial Manager
Departamento Jurídico
QSD International Group, S.L.
Av. De las Naciones. Comerciales 1-C, 9-17
Urbanización Ciudad Quesada
03170 Rojales (Alicante) España
[email protected] / www.qsdgroup.com
T: +34 965 725 410 / F: 34 966 717 121

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Find the Catastral number and you can then use this site to find the information you need.
https://www1.sedecatastro.gob.es/OVC...?TIPO=CONSULTA

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

if you know where the house is but don't have a number then go to
http://www.goolzoom.com/
and zoom in from there.
you will find buttons that allow you to go for a search with or without the catatstral overlay, once you have the house just click on the plot and get a pop-up window giving you all the information
;)

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

some times a solicitor with "local knowledge" is the wrong person to have. they need an element of that but they must look at things dispassionately from a purely legal viewpoint.

my uk solicitor spoke to the vendors local solicitor who agreed that there was no way the property could be legal under national rules, allowing us to withdraw with our deposit intact.
he then told the vendor they could put the property back on the market, thereby condoning an illegal property.
:frown:

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I've checked a few out using that. One which clearly has a private pool seen from Google maps and also shown on the Sedecastro site plan doesn't have the pool included in the description or the square meterage. They obviously know about the pool as it is shown on their plan (and shown as the correct shape which is non standard) so why isn't it in the description?

Is it because it's obvious that it's there but it hasn't been "regularised" or does one half not know what the other half is doing?

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

It could simply be that the surveyor doesn't know what he/she/it is doing.
When I bought my place I asked for and paid for a full survey, so that the house, size of rooms and boundaries were all on record (since there were a few peculiarities). The first attempt resulted in a set of drawings that showed all the house - including the unreformed bits, but missed out half the land. The surveyor's second try showed both parcels of land that were part of the property - but only showed the habitable parts of the house. :confused: All they had to do was add the bits they'd omitted - but instead they re-did the whole thing and got it just as wrong, but in a different way.

So between both sets of plans - drawn up by the town-hall's surveyor I have a full description of what I bought, but neither set is complete by itself. ISTM the whole approach was slapdash and shoddy. You'd think a professional (the plans were technically very good) would be able to take instructions from my Spanish solicitor and get it right first time, but no.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I bought my current house 16 years ago, and went through the entire process as was the custom at the time, as legally as I thought was possible and necessary. The house is 35 years old and I've been perfectly happy with it during my ownership.

As I got to know my neighbours and the area as a whole I realised that the houses, all built around the same time, had all been extended extensively, often with another level added to them and every house has a swimming pool and all sorts of outhouses.

A Danish neighbour alerted me to the fact that all these extensions and swimming pools were probably illegal (unregularised). It was easy for me to check, my Spanish seller and solicitor were still around and in responsible positions in local government.

It was exactly as I thought, it had all been dealt with in the Spanish way and I was advised not to make waves. I took the advice.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Do you mean on the escritura? If so, it's quite common to have a pool build, legally, but not to bother getting the escritura updated. There's NOTHING wrong with this but it does make things more complicated.

Usually what happens in these cases is that upon sale, the new owner shows all necessary licences etc. and has the escritura updated at the same time as his details are added.

Some will say that it should be done before the sale - perhaps in an ideal world but one must be pragmatic and as long as the amendments can be shown to be legal, then there's no issue.


Remember, I was once told by an abogado and confirmed by a notaire, the escritura is NOT the final legal document.:confused:

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Most pools here are registered as "cisterns" (our is), which is apparently very common and perfectly legal. I understand that getting a permit to build a pool is rather expensive and complicated because you need a minimum of square metres of land, plus it's considered a "luxury" and subject to additional taxes, but building a cistern has no restrictions or additional taxes.

So, the pool may be shown on the plan, but registered as a cistern.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Yes, our pool is designated as "a second, open, deposit having double use for the storage of well water and recreational use".

It is not mentioned in the escritura but it is defined in the building project as such.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

some pools are shown in the list as Deportiva

`

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I often think that British expats make problems for themselves when they try and apply Anglo Saxon ways to a Spanish (Latin) system. My escritura bears little resemblance to the house I live in, nor do the legal papers concerning the amount paid and how it was paid, but it did involve the Notary's counting room.

I have no reason to complain about any of it, I paid the same price for it as a modest semi in the UK. After the silly price hikes in the early noughties, we are now back at the same levels from the middle nineties, sell your semi in the UK and you can buy a villa with a swimming pool in Spain.

Why complain?