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Celebrities fall foul but Spain remains popular - 1 July 2009

Celebrity property owners in Spain are likely to lose part of their estates in the latest developments in the government ‘crackdown’ on illegally-built properties along the coastline. Actors Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith are facing the very real prospect of losing part of their Costa del Sol estate to the planners’ bulldozers.

The couple are set to told that they will lose more than 14,000 square feet of their grounds to allow public access to the beach beyond. As the planners prepare to seize the gardens of the grounds in order to give the public back their protected access to the coast, the couple will reflect on this second intervention on their property by the authorities.

Just last year Banderas and Griffith were ordered to demolish a 3,000 square-foot wing of their property as the planning laws had once again not been correctly followed. Planning permission had been granted to the previous owners of the property, and the license to build should not have been granted.

The news comes as it has been claimed that British interest in property in Spain remains undimmed even though banks are not easing credit restrictions on buying overseas. Paul Bradley, spokesman for the Spanish Property Owners Guild (SPOG), said that as a result of people wanting to buy in Spain but being unable to get finance, many more were considering rent-to-buy or property swap schemes.

He also said that there was ‘no way’ that prices would start rising again across the board while the unsold stock of properties on the markets has been cleared. Mr. Bradley indicated that the number of properties involved was around one million, and that it would take ‘at least three to four years.’

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