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Spain: Castles in the Air - Peter Esders, Chebsey & Co

Castles in the Air

“There are some dodgy practices that happen abroad aren’t there?” is a common comment that I hear. Usually this involves some story about property and planning and the like. “Things are different in the UK, we do things properly here” I am often told.

Over the many years that I have been dealing with International Property I have come across many examples of what can be described as “dodgy practices”. However, I can say with all honesty, that the ingenuity of people when it comes to bending or breaking the law in some countries never ceases to amaze me no matter how much experience you have.

In Spain, as in fact many other countries, there has been a long history of individual people trying to flout the law when it comes to planning permission. Sometimes the methods used are fairly simple and other times they are a lot more creative.

In Spain if you have made an alteration to a property (for example added and extension) or have built a house without planning permission then the authorities can tell you to put the property back to the way it was. In some cases you will just get a fine, depending on the seriousness of the work carried out. However, if the authorities don’t spot the construction for 4 years then they loose the right (in many cases) to order you to knock the property down.

So as a consequence of this 4 year rule what happens? I have seen properties in rural areas that are camouflaged so that the authorities don’t notice them. You would drive past them from a distance on the road and you would never know that they are there unless they are pointed out to you. I have seen people build agricultural “water reservoirs” which from the outside look normal but on the inside have lovely blue tiling and even diving boards into them and the family will congregate around them at the weekends. The fact that the water reservoir was built with an EU subsidy made the swimming experience even sweeter for the owners! I have even seen situations where properties have just been finished and an architect is willing to “certify” that a property had been built more than 4 years ago – for a price, of course.

I hasten to say that the examples that I have used weren’t my clients and I don’t condone this behaviour. In fact I warn clients not to risk such. However, I am always interested to see the lengths that people will go to to hide their illegal properties, even in the UK.

You may have seen the case earlier this year where a couple in Potters Bar had planning permission for a barn for agricultural use but instead built a 3 bedroom house complete with Gym that looked like a barn from the outside. The couple won an appeal against eviction earlier this year because they had used the property as a dwelling for more than 4 years (yes, the same period of time applies in the UK as well).

Then there is the recent case where a Surrey couple built a “castle” without any planning permission and hid it for 4 years behind straw bales before revealing it and relying on the 4 year rule. That case is still ongoing as the couple were initially told to knock the property down on the grounds that the property had only just been finished when the straw bales were taken down and the case is now being appealed.

So there we have it. A case in the UK where Planning permission was granted for one thing and another was built and another case where the property was hidden from sight and camouflaged for more than 4 years. Maybe we aren’t so different over here after all!

Peter Esders

Peter Esders is a UK Solicitor who studied Spanish law in Spain and who has been dealing with Spanish law for over 15 years. He can be contacted at Chebsey & Co, 51 London End, Beaconsfield, HP9 2HW www.chebsey.com

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