first occupation licence

[Lil Diz]

We bought a house shell from a local builder 19 years ago.

We had water and electricity connected and lived there as visitors 6 month of each year.

We now want to sell and the builder did not give us a first occupation lcense. Our spanish lawyer did not tell us to apply for one.

Cab we sell without it?

[El Cid]

Did it have a building licence issued by the local town hall?

Sid

[dxf]

Hola,

Yes you can sell it BUT you may get less for it if the bookwork isn't correct. There are over 300,000 illegal houses in Andalucia and everyone can be sold and bought - however, it all depends on you whether you can sleep of a night if you buy or sell an illegal house

Davexf

[costakid]

if it was completely illegal wouldn’t it have flagged up somewhere in 19 years.

[dxf]

if it was completely illegal wouldn’t it have flagged up somewhere in 19 years.

Hola,

Not necessarily, it is only when your escritura is examined for whatever reason or perhaps you want to change your house that it would crop up

Davexf

[Cádiz]

We bought a house shell from a local builder 19 years ago.

We had water and electricity connected and lived there as visitors 6 month of each year.

We now want to sell and the builder did not give us a first occupation lcense. Our spanish lawyer did not tell us to apply for one.

Cab we sell without it?

I expect that you were paying taxes all of this time... would this automatically not mean that you have the occupancy license...
Also is the lawyer that did transfer available...

[El Cid]

No, the town hall is quite happy to charge IBI on illegal houses.

You only get the licence at the end of the process having started with a building licence, having the architect sign a "Fin de Obra" certificate and a town hall inspection of the final works. Then they issue the certificate. This, with all the other papers go to the notary who issue a new escritura detailing the building and then to the land registry when it is added to the land registry.

It's a complicated, expensive procedure and I'm guessing that in this case none of that was done.

We have a house near us in that situation and it has just sold for about a third of what it cost to build.

Sid

[ashtondav]

Our house is definitely legal and recorded at the town hall but did not have a LFO because they didn’t exist when ours was built. We have had to engage an architect and apply for a DAFO. This is not trivial. Full technical drawings and photos of house, swimming pool, septic tanks etc, evidence of electricity boletin, maintenance contract for septic tank, copies of escritura, taxes, IBI bills etc etc etc. total cost about €2,000. Submitted the application to the town hall 2nd December with an estimate of €2,500 in charges from town hall.

So far. Silence. Apparently can take 6 months. Doesn’t bother us but if you want to sell expect the buyer to make a very mean offer...

[Wicksey]

Our first house was built without any permission in the 1990s. Once we found out in 2000 the architect at the town hall said that if it had been built for 4 years without any action taken against it, then it could be regularised. This was done at a reasonable cost by having an architect produce a plan and some photos and it was added to the escritura at the notary. We sold it in 2004 at the going rate. Of course of this has all changed now, and a DAFO is needed which is far more complicated and expensive.

[dxf]

Our first house was built without any permission in the 1990s. Once we found out in 2000 the architect at the town hall said that if it had been built for 4 years without any action taken against it, then it could be regularised.

Hola

Very importantly, the four years has been changed to six years

Davexf

[Cádiz]

This is very useful info for a friend who had my head wrecked a few years ago... Anyway something like OP did a project through Architect and obtained license for project... it seems Architect got refurb license instead of full license which i really do not understand. Then when utilities needed be installed they wanted letter frown Town Hall saying complete no person would provide this document. They still do not know how the services were installed without this.
The architect was tight with someone in the Town Hall so the license was granted... it seems from what i was told that as the project progressed that no-one wanted to know so no-one would sign-off on completion...
This is about 10 years ago... Can they now apply for LFO as mentioned...