Adding to Escritura

[AndaluzCampo]

Hi, can anyone give me some information about the system or procedure if you want to have things added on to your escritura - eg a pool, which was built without a licence?

Is it a bit like UK, where you could produce plans, and obtain retrospective planning permission for a greater fee than would have cost originally?

And if so, how and where could you go to do this here? - Town hall, abogado, gestoria, architect?

Also, would there be any chance of not getting the licence?

[Beachcomber]

I don't know which municipality you are in but this kind of thing has become pretty much impossible over the past couple of years. I really think you are on a non-starter in the current climate.

Beware of unscrupulous lawyers who will tell you that it is possible, get you to pay a provision of funds then say they haven't been successful and claim that the provision of funds has been used up in the work they have done. This is currently a favourite ploy to screw money out of what they see as gullible punters now that their golden goose of property conveyancing for foreigners has been well and truly slain. Sorry to be so negative.

However, I am encroaching on Mr Searl's topic and he may feel able to give you a more optimistic response.

[yorkshirelass]

We have just gone through this process.Although the rules have tightened up a lot and lots of things can't be added to escrituras, swimming pools can still be done.
We approached an abogado who we had used before and knew to be completely honest.She arranged an architect to draw up the plans and issue a certificate of antiquity.After all this was done,we went to the notary with the solicitor.
We are going to pick up all the paperwork tomorrow.It probably has taken about 8 weeks in all.The longest wait was for the papers to come back from the land registry office.
Hope this helps you.We live in the Velez-Malaga area and the solicitor did say that in some areas the requirements for the certificate of antiquity may differ

[teralin]

Yorkshirelass, I have sent you a private message.

Regards

[gus]

I suspect it may "just be me" but I can't quite reconcile getting an Architect to "draw up plans" for a structure which already exists and, at the same time, have a lawyer provide a certificate of antiquity!

[Jool]

It does have a logic as the plans will show what is there now in terms of building and m2, and thus any additions later on will need a licence and permission. Also they will need to know what catastral value to give it, and what the IBI should be etc. It is because so many properties, genuinely were old and had never existed on paper thanks to a lack of historical need and of course Franco

[Beachcomber]

It is the architect who provides the certificate of antiquity but whereas they used to do this on demand provided you paid them enough money, even if the property was only built a few weeks ago, the certificates now have to be validated by the College of Architects using aerial photographs to confirm the alleged age of the building and you may go through the whole of this procedure and its associated costs even to the extent of getting a new escritura granted by a notary only to find that the property registrar refuses to register it.

Also bear in mind that even subsequent registration in the property registry does not make the property 'legal'. It may, what people offering this service like to call, 'regularise' it but it does not make it legal. An illegal property is still illegal and always will be unless the classification of the land upon which it stands is subjected to a change in some future PGOU or there is a change in the law.

It is also a fact that properties built upon protected land cannot even be subjected to the 'regularisation' process.

[Jool]

In this case it is only a pool thought? The house already exists and is legal?

[AndaluzCampo]

Hi guys
thanks for your replies.
This may be moving sideways a bit on the subject, and this is something a lot of homeowners probably don't want to confront, but ...
If the house was built on 'rustico' land - part of 'finca x, ..- as stated in the opening lines of the Escritura - ' then is it 'not legal', because the land is 'non urbanizable'? (Unless the houses have now been incorporated into the PGOU, and in which case, would the land stilll have to be changed from 'rustico' to 'urbanizable'?)

On the case of the pool, the builder has built all houses over the past few years, with owners thinking they had a licence for their pool - and now discovering the don't! (All but one owner used lawyers!) Sorry David, this is not an attack on lawyers, just a statement of fact.

The houses are in one of those municipalities where the guardia picked up on discrepancies and the public prosecutor called the mayor to court to answer for his actions, with ensuing unfavourable allegations.

One of the neighbouring houses built by the builder didn't seem to exist, the owners only discovering this after having had difficulty with their IBI. In this case they are engaging a lawyer and architect to draw up plans of their newish house, including its 'secret' extension and to include the pool. This is to have it all included on the new Escritura.

They seem to deem this important, obviously, in the current climate, with estate agents being required by the guardia to obtain copies of Escrituras, IBI bills etc, for properties that they now selling. We'll see how they get on in this municipality.

Incidently, Beach, one of the lawyers we used has always stated 'it depends on the judge!' It has always sounded to me a bit like a demoralised UK public sector worker, resigned to accepting outcomes without being much able to influence change or decisions!

[El Cid]

This may be moving sideways a bit on the subject, and this is something a lot of homeowners probably don't want to confront, but ...
If the house was built on 'rustico' land - part of 'finca x, ..- as stated in the opening lines of the Escritura - ' then is it 'not legal', because the land is 'non urbanizable'?

It depends when it was built.

Before the law changed in 2002 lots of houses were built on Rustic or "Suelo no urbanizible" land quite legally. So long as they met the requirements laid down by the Junta and the town hall they are legal even if now they would not be allowed to be built.

The rules were typically that you had to have a decent sized plot - 5000 or 7000m2 and the ratio of floor plan to plot area was limited to something like 1.5%.

It's pretty well impossible now unless you have 30000 and are farming it.

Sid

[Beachcomber]

Prior to the end of 2002 you could legitimately be granted a building licence to build on non-urbanisable land (shown as NU on the PGOU) as long as you had a plot of land of sufficient size. It is only since then that the building of any rural dwelling has been illegal except under certain very rare circumstances. This is why they were built as toolsheds.

The licences which were granted for swimming pools were usually for agricultural water deposits as this would be a legitimate structure used for irrigating the land. The word 'piscina' in Spanish can mean either which is where the wool could be pulled over the purchaser's eyes with ease.

I maintain that the 'regularisation' of these properties and swimming pools does not make them legal even if they are subsequently registered in the property registry.

David Searl is a journalist not a lawyer so I am sure he will not be offended by your 'statement of fact' about them. I do it often enough although, given my experiences over the past twenty five years, I make no apologies for doing so.


EDIT:

I posted at the same time as Sid hence the similarity in the opinion except that, in my case, I had to have more than 10.000 square metres.

[murbisa]

Another question on this subject. Our house was built in 1999 and we purchased it early 2002. Our plot is split, with the half containing the house and pool on urban land and the other half being rustic land. Both house and pool are on the escritura. We added another bedroom to the house in May 2002. Would we ever be able to add this to the escritura? or anyway make it legal?

[AndaluzCampo]

yorkshirelass,
I have sent you a pm

[scampicat]

We bought our house in 2003 . It is an old village house and has an escritura and is afaik totally legal... EXCEPT even though we had a translator when we went to the notary it wasn't until later that we realised the top floor, which consists of two rooms and a roof terrace, is not mentioned on the escritura. It is a later addition to the original house but was there when we bought it.

All it says on the escritura is 'house of (size) with two stories. It does not mention separate rooms, etc.

I did ring up a lady I know who helps people with these things and she said that if we sold the house we could get the whole thing regularised then.

Would this still be the case?

[Beachcomber]

Do you mean that it now has a third storey or that is has two storeys but the rooms are not mentioned individually?

[scampicat]

It has three storeys. Only two are mentioned on the escritura and no rooms on any floor are individually mentioned. The top floor is a later addition to the original house (not added by us).

[Beachcomber]

You could certainly delay adding this to the escritura until you sold at some time in the future and save one lot of notary's fees but if there were to be any problem it could lose you a sale although that would be less likely if the purchasers were Spanish.

As everything is under the original roof you are unlikely to have any problem but the decision has to be yours.

[scampicat]

Thank you, we were thinking of getting it done just before we put the house on the market.

Although it is the same footprint, the top floor is an addition, it is not under the original roof (i.e. the house has been made higher -two rooms have been built on the original flat roof and the rest of the original flat roof paved over to make a roof terrace).

[julian]

I would either do it now or not at all, to do it just before the sale could hold you up as it may take some time to get it all done and properly registered.
as BC says, sell it to a spaniard who won´t worry about it...try to sell it to a brit and you´ll never get there !!!
if in your street you are allowed 3 stories (you can check at the town hall) then your house is not illegal.

[scampicat]

Thanks, most of the houses in the street (there are only five) are three-storey and three have roof terraces. As our lane is on the side of a mountain and our house is on the 'downhill' side of the terrace, it is actally lower than the the three-storey house uphill . It certainly does not look out of place.

The addition may have been done twenty or more years ago, the house is at least sixty years old as I have seen it on a photo taken in the 1950s . The age of the house is not given on the escritura. Unfortunately because of the angle of the photo, you can't see whether the extra floor is aready there, but it is newer than the rest of the house, as can be toldfrom the building materials.