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My mobile home misery
April 17, 2009 • Malaga • 4 Comments
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• The village of Cartama in Malaga province |
A BRITISH woman who was told by lawyers that she could erect a mobile home on her land has been forced to move back to England.
Eileen Mullholland, who is often wheelchair-bound due to excruciating arthritis, planned to spend the warmer months of the year in a mobile home in Spain to ease her pain.
She and husband Jack bought land in Cartama in 2003 and were assured by lawyers and their translator that it was perfectly legal to put a mobile home on the land as long as nothing permanent was erected.
Of course, as with other victims, this assurance was never confirmed in writing.
As it turns out just months beforehand, in December 2002, the law had changed, meaning the land was not even allowed to have temporary housing or mobile homes parked on it.
The first the couple knew of this law change was when inspectors visited their property in 2005, which was followed up by a demand to remove the home in 2006.
To add to their woes, the Mullhollands then found out their land had never been legally segregated. In fact, the previous landowner had never even registered it, so Cartama town hall is still refusing to contemplate registering the land to seven current English and Spanish owners.
The law firm, despite being employed to survey the land, allowed Jack and Eileen to buy the property from the landowner, who – in a classic conflict of interest – they also represented.
The Mullhollands now realise that they suffered from this conflict of interest that happens all too often in Spain, when lawyers represent both the landowner and the buyer.
Despite questioning the set-up at the time, they were promised this dual loyalty would not cause any problems for them.
“We just feel so used and abused by the Spanish system, corrupt estate agents and lawyers and untruthful interpreters,” said Eileen.
Their mobile home is now in storage and Jack and Eileen have returned to England, from where they have petitioned the EU and are waiting for a reply.
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Keeping an eye on this one, Any more info on mobile homes would be appreciated Jon
mobile homes are bad……they attract tornadoes… ask the yanks that live in the American Mid-West….
its about time every foreign person with housing problems should get togrther and have a massive demonstration against this corruption and invite the world press
One of the sad aspects of this type of story is that you only get the view of the person who has the problem.Where is the response from the lawyers,town hall and interpreter?
Before buying the land ,did they go to the Town hall and ask the question .What can i build on this amount of land and in this area? Is it ok to place a mobile home there? only the Mullhollands can answer that.
Why are they trying to put a mobile home there ? most likely because they knew that a permenant structure was impossible and tried to get around it by putting a mobile home on the site.
Once again the lawyers/interpreter are blamed and if guilty of this deception and negligence they should be punished. What about the interpreter? Were they registered ,qualified,did they have an office,or operate from a bar.
If you drive around Villafranca and others areas in and around Cartama there are many mobile homes and wooden chalets they look like gypsy encampments.Would you be able to buy a piece of land anywhere else in Europe and stick a mobile home on it? Answer? No. so why do they think they can do it here?
Because somebody else did it, and they got away with it,or did they?
Seprona are out in force at the moment and the sooner they clear up the building and planning irregularities in and around this part of Spain the better for all.This seems to be being completed in an organised system, without predudice or favour.
Over the past 8 years if i have heard “well the Spanish get away with it” once i have heard it a thousand times.The only sad part of sepronas investigations will be many hundreds of stories like this one
I feel some sympathy with these people but they must take some responsibility for themselves.The story would be more balanced if the other side had their say .
Even “we asked the lawyers/interpreter for their side of the story but they refused to comment”