House description

[beachbabe]

I am thinking of buying a house. It consists of lounge diner kitchen, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a 1 bed apartment with bathroom underneath with separate entrance.

The offical documentation in the contract refers to a 2 bed, 2 bath house and "an 29 metre annex for storing agricultural tools". Does this mean it is being used illegally as a 3rd bedroom? The sq m of the house on the contract includes the total space including the apartment/store room.

Am I likely to have problems if i try to create a corridor from the house to the apartment? Or even to continue to use the apartment as a bedroom/bathroom? Or as it all on the same footprint is there no problem and i can use each room for whatever purpose I want?

[Enrique]

Hi beachbabe,
Sounds like the first description is Estate agent speak.........

The documents giving the facts...........get a big reduction for the "Shed"

Or walk away as there are loads of properties about.................

[El Cid]

It sounds to me like it was originally 2 beds with an empty underbuild which is very common.

Most people would just build underneath without permission. It sounds like they applied for permission but not for a habitable area but for a shed, probably referred to on the escritura as an apero or nave as they could get a licence more easily and it wouldn't affect the catastral value so much.

If that is the case then the building is legal but you cannot use the apartment for living in.

I think you will find many properties with illegal underbuilds so this one is actually more legal than the others!

Sid

[beachbabe]

Sid

It is an underbuild. It is described as:

"Tiene anexo a la vienda un local para utiles de labranza con una superficie construida de veintenueve metros"

Can I confirm that I should not be using this as an apartment/bedroom. Would I get permission to do so from Ayuntamiento do you think?

[peteroldracer]

A can of worms best left unopened IMHO!
As Enrique says, there are plenty places for sale, so you could save yourself a lot of aggravation by walking away from this one - or of course from buying anything here - rent it!

[El Cid]

Sid

It is an underbuild. It is described as:

"Tiene anexo a la vienda un local para utiles de labranza con una superficie construida de veintenueve metros"

Can I confirm that I should not be using this as an apartment/bedroom. Would I get permission to do so from Ayuntamiento do you think?

I mentioned the word "Apero" it is often called an "Apero de Labranza". The reason I know about this is that we once looked at a new build house and all was going well until I saw the building licence which was for an "Apero de Labranza". If it was up to 60m2 they would call it a "nave".

It was a bit obvious when I saw the official plans where the living room was described as a fruit store. We ran away from that one pretty quickly!

Officially you should only use it for the purpose declared on the licence but if it has been like this for some time I wouldn't worry about it especially as it is "quasi" legal - it's just the usage that is questionable. If in doubt keep a lawnmower by the side of the bed and if questioned say you were keeping it company!

The house up the road from us was built as a Nave and an unsuspecting English couple bought it thinking it was a house. Shortly after it was built the authorities went around doing some checks and having realised that is was clearly a house, they called the police who put blue tape around it and said you can't live there. That was 10 years ago and that's the last they have heard about it!

They have got 30000 totally illegal houses in the area to worry about - a semi legal underbuild is not going to be very high on their hit list!

Sid

[beachbabe]

Thanks, Sid. I'd go ask at the Ayuntamiento for their view.