Antonio Flores (Columnist)
MARBELLA municipal officials have approved a revolutionary measure that will greatly prop up property sales and short-term rentals, COVID-19 permitting.
Last Monday, the spokesman for the PP Felix Romero announced that the Town Hall had approved groundbreaking and much awaited decision to allow qualified architects to grant Licenses of First Occupation (LFO) under the ‘responsible declaration’ format.
This declaration or statement is a document in which the signer confirms, under his responsibility, that the property or building meets the requirements of applicable planning regulations to be used by owners and tenants.
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According to Romero, anyone trying to go through the ‘cumbersome’ Town Hall procedures to attain the LFO will now be able to resort to an architect who, within days, can officially approve a property as fit-for-purpose just as if the Town Hall had rubber stamped it.
Romero added that the average time for granting an LFO of 12 months could now be shortened to weeks, if not days, a measure that in his opinion is ‘indispensable to collaborate in the economic recovery’.
He even went to admit that some licenses have taken years to be approved.
Sales that were pending or conditional on getting an LFO, and rentals that were being offered in a semi-clandestine way on properties without this document will benefit.
I have had some enquiries about this. Please note that this is a measure to speed up the granting of LFOs to houses constructed WITH planning permission or those completed prior to 1975 and thus constructed under a different planning regimen to the current one. It is NOT applicable to houses constructed without planning permission.