Discrepancies with catastral

[TinaTapas]

After more than a decade, we've been told that the description of our plot (as far as the Catastro is concerned) do not match our escritura's description of the size of the plot.

There also appears to be a chunk in the middle of our garden that isn't ours - according to the catastro.
We apparently also own a much larger plot of land than is stipulated in our escritura - again, according to the catastro

As this house has existed since the 1970's and has been bought and sold several times since then, is this discrepancy going to cause us problems if and when we want to sell?

Our escritura/nota simple are both 100% in keeping with our plot/house and certainly none of the people who own the bordering lands have ever said that they own a portion of our garden - or that we in fact own the 10,000 plot behind our house, which they continue to farm

Is this not their responsibility to rectify the fact that they haven't updated their records properly, as obviously our plot must have been properly subdivided years ago?

Do I just not worry about this - as any problem would have surely been spotted by my solicitor or any of the other previous solicitors whenever the property was sold over the last 40 years plus

[ajtg1952]

Where I live all the land boundaries have been shifted 40m to the east. Apparently an error made many years ago which, I am told, will never be rectified. It's just not worth the effort worrying about it.

[TinaTapas]

Many thanks - your reply has allowed my shoulders to drop a few inches

As long as it doesn't suddenly present problems when we come to sell I don't care what is on the catastral - just surprised that no one picked up this kind of discrepancy - but then again we only saw the escrita/plot details, never saw anything from the Catastro at that time

[brimsham]

We have a discrepancy between the amount of land shown on our Escratura compared to that on the Catastral and have been advised that when we come to sell this will have to be sorted out.

ray

[wollie]

I am wondering if you are aware that all the property maps are available online and you will at least have the opportunity to look at all the info yourself.
Its ages since I looked up and if someone does not volunteer this info I am sure I will find the website again.

[Enrique]

Hi,
There is this site if you have your property "info"..............see they have added a small map on the "numbers page" since I last looked. For full map look at cartografía tab.

https://www1.sedecatastro.gob.es/OVCFra ... O=CONSULTA.

Then there is Sigpac.................

http://sigpac.mapa.es/fega/visor/

And Beachcomber's tip from way back............

Google Earth with the Catastro add-in

[ajtg1952]

That website is the basis of the problem as the aerial photographs often don't align. That is what has happened with us.

[luckyjim]

I would worry. We are going through this at the moment. Our escritura is correct(our solicitor says this is good enough) as far as the law is concerned, but, the land according to the Catastral is different and includes a large chunk of my neighbours house. The crux of the matter is that the IBI is decided by the Catastral, therefore we are paying for land that we do not have. We have had to have new plans drawn up(€500)and submitted them to the Catastral. They have acknowledged the discrepancy and now we wait. However bear in mind that they are only liable for a refund of up to 4 years.

[axarquian]

As ajtg1952 says, the aerial photographs do not align, the physical tracks that border our property are way out of line with the photograph.
On viewing our property on the Cartografia tab on the Sedecatastro site our property IS within the tracks forming the boundaries of our property, HOWEVER, the house is indicated as being alongside one of the boundary tracks whereas in fact it is 9 metres from the track. Is this likely to be a problem, I was going to apply for a licence to build a terrace in the 9 metre area however according to the Catestral this area does not exist !!

[TinaTapas]

thanks for all the replies

Surely the responsibility for this lies with the original seller who subdivided the land?

As they still own the plot surrounding ours, should I speak to them?

[vinuela vinny]

Long story short.....

In 2003, we bought a house built in 1992 in the campo, 60k from Sevilla. The vendor built a new house 500m away, and we became acquaintances. When the first IBI invoice came (envelope on the gate, delivered by the local Police) we were back in the UK, so our new friend took it and paid it for us - €400ish. We thought it a bit expensive, but so far so good......

On our return, we reimbursed our neighbour, but the pedant in me caused me to check the number on the invoice against the number on our deeds - which were different! We went to the Catastral Office in Sevilla to sort it (no gestor, and not much Spanish then either!), and after much too-ing and fro-ing, sucking of teeth and shaking of heads, they decided that the number on the invoice related to a plot of land some 2k away, occupied by a petrol station. We identified our plot on both their map and aerial photo, and signed documents to that effect.....

A month later, we were re-invoiced by our local ayuntamaento, and paid the new amount then and each year thereafter - around €200. Our neighbour was amazed to receive a substantial rebate in full for his payments between 1992 and 2003 - and he promptly reimbursed us with the erroneously paid €400. He became a friend for life, and we have never bought a beer in the local bar, when he has been there.....

The moral of the story is that we now feel much more secure knowing that everything is ok, and as a bonus, we gained a friend for life......

We would suggest that you correct the error as soon as you can

Regards to all

Vincent

[gus-lopez]

As ajtg1952 says, the aerial photographs do not align, the physical tracks that border our property are way out of line with the photograph.

Exactly the same up here. I own part of the road according to them ! I'm sure they've done it to generate income as you have to pay a fee to correct it, along with getting all the neighbours involved signatures, & attendance.

[TinaTapas]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions

In the past, I've accessed the websites mentioned on here - and neither our or most of our neighbours' plots are correctly subdivided - I also apparent own the camino, as all the boundaries are about 50 metres out .


My property has been bought and sold several times over 40 years or so - if there hasn't been a problem with these sellers in all that time (several of whom were Brits) then do I really need to worry?

Should I just smile and point to my escritura/plot specifications (which note the metres of both the house and the land)

[Gertrude]

I have also had this problem with the Catastro, originally when we first moved here we had our cellar changed to a kitchen/diner. This year we had a bill from Catastro saying we have been fined 60 euros because we didn't change our Escritura. Then we noticed on their plans that part of the neighbours house was part of our house, so the Solicitor said we can get this changed if we want to because we are selling our house and the people that are buying our house might notice that it is incorrect, so we started procedures back in September. What I want to know is that when we bought this house our solicitor at the time should have noticed that the plans wasn't correct and should have dealt with it then but eleven years ago they didn't bother with that sort of thing, so now we have to pay to get this corrected. Does anyone know if we could claim this money back from the solicitor that we had when buying our house?

[katy]

In theory you should be able to claim for negligence but I think you would be throwing away money. In fact you may not be able to get a Lawyer to take on the case.

[Manchesteral]

And even if you could would you trust him ?
A

[Wicksey]

Did your solicitor visit the house before you bought it and compare it to the plans? If not how would they know it was incorrect? Many years ago we were told that the only way of knowing the boundaries of our land was to ask the neighbours!

When we were in the middle of buying our current house we asked to meet the neighbour as initially we wished to purchase some land from him so we owned our driveway to the house. Whilst we were altogether we asked him to walk the boundary with us and it was then that we found out that according to him he had retained about half the plot when he originally sold our house and land 10 years, and two owners previously.

According to the castastro and escritura everything matched up but now we were being told that half the plot belonged to him. Anyway, in order to stop us pulling out, a land 'swop' (vendors had to pay him!) was done so we kept the same amount of land but the boundaries changed. Nearly 5 years on we are still awaiting the change to be done on the catastro site.

However, I always thought that if the land was not correctly subdivided (segregated) on the catastro at the time it cannot be done now. We attempted to buy a house on 2.500m2 where the land had not been segregated and was still showing as being on the original 11.000m2 at the catastro. After unsuccessfully attempting to buy the rest of the land so it was legal, we had to give up as advised by our asesoria. The house has been for sale since at least 2006 and is still for sale now. Rural campo land was not easy to subdivide, and I believe now is nearly impossible to do so.

Re the alignment of the maps on the catastro site, it seems to be that all the maps are slightly out when aligned over the Google earth photos

[truebrit]

who pays for the land on the IBI.?

[Gertrude]

Thank you for all of the replies.

I am not sure if the solicitor did check the plans before we bought, we gave him power of attorney so we thought that he would sort out that for us, we assumed that it is the normal procedure to check the plans but didn't know at the time that they don't bother with that over here.

Also I assume that we must be paying for the extra land on our ibi, does it say that on the bill that you get (i.e. how much land you have) what you are paying for?

I don't think we will be going ahead with trying to claim from the solicitor, as you say it might not be worth spending all that money and not getting nowhere, also we will be moving back to England in February anyway so no point in starting something we won't be able to finish.

[chrissiehope]

Usually the IBI bill will show the relevant catastral reference number, and the value of the land registered under that reference number (identificacion/ identificado) - try comparing it with the value given on the catastro site (which should give the area for that reference number & I think also the value.