This poll has come about due to the discussion about not having any accurate figures detailing the % of illegal & demolished properties in Spain on "The prospect of buying in Spain and losing everything" thread.

We are renting. ;-)
This will only give you figures for people that are members on here though, so you will still get bil moaning. ;-)

Saucebox.

Isn't that an English irregular verb?

I critique
you complain
He moans

I probably should have added a 4th option to the poll:

Did you: buy an illegal house in Spain, but you don't know what will happen to it.

If it is possible to amend the poll, do tell.

Not sure to tell the truth, it may be too late for you to edit, but maybe mitzy supermod or admin can do it. ,-)

There is of course the further option -
I believe I bought a legal house
Because: you & solicitor did what you could/should to check it all out, it's a couple of hundred years old, has escritura, swimming pool's on there, etc etc but how can you really tell until something goes belly up & the system turns out to be even more flawed than anyone could ever believe, or a previous owner's extensions didn't actually have the proper licences........

..... another option, like a friend of mine.

Bought an illegal house in spain and it is falling down.

Another option

The Mayor assured me it was legal

OK.... so it looks like we have a number more options.

Maybe we should have had an option poll prior to having this poll?

Hi

I knowingly bought an illegal house; it has been built on land specified for housing development, but the council does not give planning permission for individual houses and has not done so since 1996 when it got told to make a plan.

If the house is urbanised the latest estimate is 30€ a square metre and I have 1,500 metres! So it ain't gonna happen.

What will happen is anyones guess - I reckon I will be long dead and buried before anyone sorts the mess out (there are 15,000 illegal houses in Chiclana according to official figures).

Davexf

I cant change the Poll I'm afraid, we've had this once before iirc and theres no option for me to do it.

should have also added, 'Do you know whether your house is legal or illegal'.

good point - am acquaintance of ours only discovered that his was illegal when he tried to increase his mortgage

you'd have thought the bank would have checked when they first issued the mortgage rather than wait til he wanted to borrow another 10 grand against the the property

I thought I was being safe by buying through legit estate agent and having a solicitor.
However I didn't think to check that the estate agent and solicitor are not actually the owners, I wish I had.
Cost a lot of money,time and heartache to sort out.

I`m very confident my cortijo is legal , its over 100 years old, escritura / nota simple etc all in my name, registered as a dwelling not a tool shed like so many ,guess I was lucky as at the time I was unaware of the many potential problems ,cortijos / old town houses seem a much safer bet,

Rgds

Rotor