Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I would hope the vendor would pay for the updating prior to sale or by a suitable deduction in the price.
the last thing anyone wants is to have to cough up for extra things that should have been done 10 years before by the previous owner but they couldn't care less about a minor illegality, after all its only Spain.

is the habitation certificate the final ??
but then that could be trumped by a Certificate of Non-Infringement of Planning. This is issued by the Town Hall but there could/should be one from the Regional Planning Authority (i.e. the Junta) but that can take many months.

I know of houses in Almeria that have the Habitation but there is no way you will get a Non-Infringement of Planning.
Ipso facto the house is illegal
`

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

It's not illegal - so I'm told!

One of our escrituras bears no resemblance to the property at all! It mentions 'trasteros' which we don't have, it references the wrong street address so we have to use the property ID's and the sizes it mentions are wrong.

We did a horizontal divide on a property but they refuse to give us clean escrituras - one per property. Their answer is simply "why?" to which I replied "because I want it" - it still never happened. They said wait 'till I sell one of them.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I recently assisted an absent fellow expat to put his house up for sale. He had approached two English estate agents who both wanted a large sum of money up front to supposedly legalise some extensions on his house before putting it on their books, the extensions being well over 10 years old. One of them did offer him a quick cash sale for a ludicrously small sum.

I sent him to a reputable Spanish agent who knew his house and the area, examined the paper work, and put the house up for sale at a sensible price. As far as I know he has already had two offers, and that's in the dead month of July.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I'd be interested to know which one that is. Is it the one next to the supermarket in the cc on Paganini? We have had dealings with 2 English and an Anglo/German agency in the area and the man (not the owner) we spoke to in the Spanish agency was much more upfront about the commission they charged vendors, reductions in prices, how long on the market etc, than any of the others.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I mean the plan of the property as shown on the Sede Electronica del Catastro website.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

I'm not complaining, just trying to minimise problems for us (or our heirs) when the time comes to sell.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Don't take that as gospel either!
Ours doesn't even show the horizontal divide some ten years after the event even thought it's fully legal and on the escritura.
I doubt very much that when our new pool is finished it will appear on the Catastro web site in our own lifetime.....the mañana effect is alive and well in deepest Andalucia! :blink:

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

very much so.
there also seems to be a "my predecessor didn't do it so why should I ?" or "no one told me I had to do that bit" - but then it doesn't seem to just be planning offices, my doctor's is just the same - even giving me the (wrong) address to contact in the city.

I would have thought there would be an element of pride in getting these things sorted out and finished, but it doesn't seem to be there. Seems to be more pride in filing in a brown slip folder along with many others and when someone asks a question pulling the whole lot out and going through it with careful deliberation. Perhaps it shows how busy they are :huh:
Its the only way the "little people" can make a statement.
:blink:

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

When I was sorting out changing the water and sewage bills into my name my friend asked me why I wanted this because they do not bother. She then told me that their bills were still in her grandfathers name and he had been dead over 20 years. The town hall knows this but do not ensure that their information is up to date and as far as they are concerned it does not matter whose name is on the bill provided it is paid.

Rosemary

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

a friend of mine down on the coast pays his electricity on a bill in the previous owner's name, who moved out 10 years ago.

if everyone refused to pay all these utility bills made out in the wrong name there would be chaos.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

It is so stupid when it is so easy to change the name on the bills.

Rosemary

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

There is sometimes a good reason for this.

You can usually change the bank details so that the bills get paid but if you change the name then effectively it is a new contract and in some cases the electricity company may ask for a new boletin which could involve considerable cost if any rewiring needs to be done.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

Yes, but there are legal implications!

I've mentioned this before but I had a similar problem. I bought a building and asked to see previous electricity and water bills - all up-to-date so I went ahead. I didn't bother to change the utility names as I was going to be stopping them all shortly.

I then needed to cut the electric as I was going to rip the building apart and re-do everything. I contacted Iberdrola who said that as the electric account was not in my name, I couldn't stop it. What I needed was for him to contact Iberdrola and then they could do it. I pointed out that he last owned the property in 1960 and, in all probability, was now dead.

They still wanted his signature! I pointed out again that he was probably dead - no good, they needed him to contact them. I suggested a seance but I don't think they understood (or my Spanish was not up to this level of subtlety)! I simply stopped paying the bill (as per their advice) and now we have nothing and no likelihood of getting it reconnected.

Cutting a long story short, if the contract is not in your name, then you may have immense problems down the line.

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

+1 :amen:

Re: Unregistered house extensions/alterations
 

An Irish guy who bought a house up the street from us had his electricity disconnected twice - because the electricity bills he received weren't in his name, he didn't pay them! The chaos would be for the consumers, not the suppliers, as they would just rake in loads of extra money in reconnection fees.

It seems to be common that when people buy a property here, the estate agent or lawyer changes the name on the bills to that of the new owner, but does not change the contract (no doubt, as Fred says, because to do so would require a new boletin and possibly costly work to put in a new meter box and distribution box, if not a rewire, especially with older properties). I have met lots of people who had no idea that the contract wasn't in their name, as they had never looked at anything other than the address on the bills.