land grab ??

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Hanlooney
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land grab ??

Postby Hanlooney » Wed Sep 05, 2007 8:27 pm

Hi all :D Well we are seriously thinking about moving over to spain in the very near future and although we havent heard too much latley about this problem we are still a bit concerned over it .. IT being the terrible stories we have heard of where people have been turned out of their houses because a developer or local authorities have decided to re-develop that area and they can do nothing about it and lose everything !! is this still going on ? and if so which areas seem to be getting hit most? would be very very gratefull for any feedback on this point . thanks Colin N Terri XX

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MrsP
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Postby MrsP » Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:25 pm

If you are buying new property on urbanised land you won't have to worry about this. It affects rural property on large pieces of land. Most of the affected propertys were bought by people privately and not through respectable agents.
Don't let it put you off, just make sure you have a good lawyer and not one recommended by the agents.
Chris

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Postby Beachcomber » Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:06 pm

This is an entirely pessimistic view and no-one is going to thank me for expressing it but, as much as I love living here and despite the fact that it is now a member of the EU, Spain (Andalucía in particular) is still nothing more than a third world country governed by a corrupt elected dictatorship in which anything can happen.

Ask the people in Marbella if buying a new property on urbanised land is any guarantee against the possibility of losing all of your money!

I have not been to the UK for a considerable number of years but I still have a property there and I would never, ever, consider the remotest possibility of selling it.

Having said that please don't let me put you off. As I said, it is just my personal jaundiced view of the current national and regional governments in general and the Spanish legal 'profession' in particular. If you decide to make the move I hope all goes well for you. Just be very, very careful as Mrs P says and don't believe anything that anyone (especially a lawyer) tells you.

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silver
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Postby silver » Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:23 am

What is land grab :?:
people have been turned out of their houses because a developer or local authorities have decided to re-develop that area and they can do nothing about it and lose everything !!
never heard of this..there are cases where people own a piece of rural land that becomes reclassified from rural land to urban land...this means that their property is now worth a lot more because they can build more or divide the land into smaller plots...but also owners are obliged to pay for any necessary infrastructures (pavements, drains etc) to the newly classified land or sell up to others who will do it...there are other cases where rural land has been reclassified to urban by crooked mayor who receive money from crooked property developers so they can build an urbanization on cheaper land...this is the illegal and is now being controlled by new laws. ..there are other cases where people have brought rural land and built a house without a building permission or with a corrupt building permission..these houses are now in danger of demolition...as beachcomber says
despite the fact that it is now a member of the EU, Spain (Andalucía in particular) is still nothing more than a third world country governed by a corrupt elected dictatorship in which anything can happen.
The government are now discussing new laws to prevent these scandals.
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frank
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Postby frank » Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:31 am

It maybe a "personal jaundiced view", and possibly many may disagree with you, but I'm sure there will also be quite a few that have had their fingers burnt, that will agree with you 100%. :? Any third world country would be proud to have the same level of corruption that goes on in Andalucia. I'm always amazed that Spain, despite it's modern aspirations, still continues to be riddled with corruption.
Regards, Frank

No soy residente, simplemente un turista, ¿qué sé yo?

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Postby frank » Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:39 am

The government are now discussing new laws to prevent these scandals.
Talking about new laws is one thing, passing them is something else. And having passed them, Spain has a very poor record of implementing them. In a lot of areas, Spain has similar laws to UK, however the implementation is completely different. :(
Regards, Frank

No soy residente, simplemente un turista, ¿qué sé yo?

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freecatsrus
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Postby freecatsrus » Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:48 am

Exactly Frank, not only do they interpretate the EU land laws to suit themselves they also do it for many other things, e.g Telephonic for instance.

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Cassandra
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Postby Cassandra » Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:25 am

Land grab become a bit of an issue in our area recently with some major new development in the next village (from about 40 houses to 1000+ :shock: ) and some people have had land appropriated and had payment towards infrastructure demanded!

They tried again nearer to us a few months ago but plans have now been dropped after a lot of negative publicity for our local mayor who also lost his stranglehold on the local council because of it - he only has a 7-2 majority now instead of all 9 seats :roll:

Things are slowly changing and people are fighting back and winning against greedy developers at last but I would still be very cautious if buying in a semi-rural area.

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Postby Trooperman » Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:50 am

Have a look at the link below. There are land grabs with absolutely no compensation on offer nor the ability to find out about them beforehand. It is, as beachcomber says, the actions of a dictatorial potentate that motivates all this.

A local lawyer is essential (don´t appoint one on the coast who has no experience of campo conveyancing) and ask as many locals as you can find about drove roads in the vicinity.


http://www.andalucia.com/forums/viewtop ... t=pecuaria
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silver
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Postby silver » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:00 pm

So Trooperman
land appropriation in the guise of recovering old drove roads
Is this what is meant by land grab then???
Land that cover these drove road would be stipulated in the deeds so the lawyer or translated should have informed the buyers, who would then have known what was included in the land they were buying....but then there are so many lawyers who just don´t do their jobs properly and its really time the law sorted them out as well....if this happened to me I think I would go for suing the lawyer.
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Trooperman
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Postby Trooperman » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:08 pm

No.

I suggest you read the thread in its entirety.

It is NOT stipulated in the deeds/catastral registry until the process of recovery is at a pre-defined stage according the the law that allows the Junta to start these recovery processes.
nil illegitimum carborundum

katy
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Postby katy » Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:11 pm

If you want to know about land grab and infrastructure costs, ask the residents on Estepona Golf. Particularly the woman living on a UK state pension who has recieved a charge on her house for 44,000 euros. First time the residents knew is when one of them ws going to sell and found the charge on the nota simple :(

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silver
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Postby silver » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:18 pm

Trooperman..if the drove road is not stipulated in your deeds/catastral registry...then you have a good case to take to court...someone must be responsible for this..from what you say the village people all knew... did you buy from a local who knew??
I owned a plot with a realenga passing through..I knew what it was and where it was...it was stated on the deeds... it would have cost a lot more without it...and I was given to understand that it was part of my land but did not belong to me.
Katy are infrastructure costs also included in the meaning of land grab??? why "Particularly the woman living on a UK state pension" did she pay more than other owners of property on Estepona Golf? The town hall should have notified all residents of this charge and the reason....so folk understand...
Spain is so behind on law and justice...and many other things too.
Don´t English people know this???
Why do they expect everything to work as well as it does in the uk??
Do you think that Brits are targeted???
I have lived here more than most on this forum...love it...know there is a lot to be done to improve... enjoy the life I live here accepting it for what it is...and sometime join in to protest when I think it will help.
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Valencia_Paul
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Postby Valencia_Paul » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:40 pm

I think the land grab is an absolute disgrace and feel sorry for those caught up in it. I think you are most at risk buying a place with a plot of land just outside a town - a prime place for redevelopment and building of new urbanisations. It is not just the foreigners who are targeted. In the Valencia area I once saw a whole line of houses with (in the Spanish tradition) a load of white sheets with messages written on them saying "you can have my house for free" and similar themes. It turns out that the council decided that these established houses would benefit from a new road, street lighting and all that, but the residents would be forced to pay 1000s.

The worst examples are where you have your property sliced in half and get charged a fortune for the privilege. Great Spain may be but this would not happen in the UK without reasonable compensation.

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Trooperman
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Postby Trooperman » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:42 pm

Silver, I know you mean well but, believe me, in the case of drove roads or via pecuarias, the legislation to recover them is what we would call enabling legislation and stipulates a process that the junta must go through a) to identify them, b) to mark them out physically, and c) then to demand of the landowners various measures to cease use and occupation.

No change is made to the catastral until the end (including within that period, valueless rights of rebuttal) of the second stage - (b - above).

It is therefore possible to buy with no-one, other than the seller and other locals (and they´re not going to shout out about it) knowing.

And if you were to read the enabling act (which is linked somewhere on that A.com link I entered above) you will see that the law stipulates the maximum width the Junta may recover. However, sheer greed on the part of Señor Chaves´ and his administration in Sevilla, results in the maximum allowed width always seemingly being chosen. So, if you thought you had a footpath (or in my case a road running along the edge of, and forming your boundary, you could find the Junta demanding up to 75 metres in the case of a cañada - (less for veredas or cordeles) being taken, WITH NO COMPENSATION!

And if you think my plight is bad enough, I have to point out that my Spanish neighbours have their houses slap bang in the middle of the proposed cañada!
Last edited by Trooperman on Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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katy
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Postby katy » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:43 pm

Did I say anything that Brits are being targeted? The owner of Estepona Golf is a Brit. He and a Spanish developer (with a nod from the Ayuntamiento) have stitched all the residents up, Spanish and Foreigners equally. I am sure you have read all about it before though as it was on this site.

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silver
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Postby silver » Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:05 pm

Did I say anything that Brits are being targeted?
Did I say that you said that???No...I did ask if that was what you thought....
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campo babe
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Postby campo babe » Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:04 pm

I have to back up Trooperman's comments about drove roads. They are not mentioned in the Catastral etc and the one which takes in part of our land only came to light when representatives from the Junta came along the track and put wooden stakes in what we thought was our front garden. They told us that all the land 9 metres our side of the track belonged to the track and not to us, despite us having deeds showing the land belonging to us. We are not allowed to do anything to the land without their permission.

We put in a petition to the relevant department of the Junta, but received no acknowlegement, the only news being found on the internet in the form of a Boja.

Anyway, as Trooperman says, it is all in the link he gave you. So be careful out there!!


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