Rob Horgan
THOUSANDS of homeowners are eagerly awaiting an important change in planning laws.
The Junta are expected to vote in changes to the LOUA (planning law) which will save thousands of homes – many owned by expats – from demolition.
Belgian mayor of Alcaucin Mario Blancke has presented a case to amend the law, on behalf of expat campaign group SOHA (Save our homes Axarquia).
“By law these houses should be demolished, but does this seem like justice?” he said. “By law single sex marriage was banned and women were not allowed to vote.
“Legislators had to change to adapt to social reality.”
He added: “We only ask one thing; don’t let us down.”
SOHA have already been successful in amending the law so that town halls have to pay homeowners who ‘bought in good faith’ compensation before carrying out demolition work.
The group’s latest proposal is to regularise or legalise land which has already been built on.
Blancke claims this benefits both the homeowner – who keeps their home – and the town halls – who don’t have to pay out compensation to demolish property.
There are an estimated 300,000 illegally built properties in the Axarquia.
A decision is expected in the coming weeks.
What exactly are the Junta de Andalucia waiting for? They have the power to change the law and legalise all the affected properties tomorrow but for some reason, known only to themselves, they drag their feet. Now there are properties in Marbella also affected by the woefully inadequate property laws that they created and still they do nothing.
I wish I could feel optistic about the Junta doing the right thing but I doubt that any law change will be either effective or far reaching enough to finally draw a line under this debacle. I hope the C’s will have some meaningful input in these new proposals but they are a minor part of the pact with PSOE and it is unclear as to how much real influence they have.
I sincerely hope that PSOE do not have any power after next week’s general election otherwise the whole of Spain will be run like Andalucia and there is very little hope for anyone.
For everyone’s sake, I hope they prove me wrong and come up with something that works.