Rob Horgan
UP to 30,000 Andalucian homes will be made legal following a Junta law change.
The reform in the LOUA (urban planning law) will regularise 10,000 homes in Malaga which were previously deemed illegal.
Homes built on rural land not identified in development will finally be added to the Registro Civil.
Many of the homes are in the Axarquia region and were bought ‘in good faith’ by expat owners, unaware that their properties were built on protected land.
Once regularised the homes will also be able to connect to the electricity grid as well as the local water mains.
Philip Smalley, President of Save our Homes Axarquía (SOHA), said he was overjoyed to ‘put an end to the uncertainty that they hundreds of familes have had to endure’.
This is good news and my thanks goes to those who worked tirelessly to get it through. My understanding is that this particular law change applies to properties built on segregated land – these are the people who were in immediate danger of having their houses demolished and they must be very relieved. There is still some way to go on this with more law changes needed to cover thousands of other so called illegal properties in the region. It is worth bearing in mind that nothing can be done for houses built on either protected land or on floodplains but fortunately these are in the minority.
How ironic that we are starting to see these law changes after the dreaded Brexit vote.
Title is misleading. Why have the Olive Press waited for four years to announce the modification to the law of 2012?