Holiday Homes
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Valencian Government in the hands of Contruction Companies By Conor Dorsch July 17, 2002 |
| Ref: Acticle in the Sunday Times, " Spanish Dreams in Tatters", July 14th 2002 |
| The British Sunday Times ran an article last weekend, bringing to my attention one of the most bizarre and outrageous stories to take place in the Valencian Region of Spain. According to the article, landowners have been obliged to give up sections of their land to property developers and, whats more, contribute to the developers costs in providing infrastructure and facilities for the construction of new "urbanisations", a spanish term for what are essentially housing estates. All this comes under the a law which was brought in eight years ago by the then socialist regional government of Valencia, and is called "la Ley Reguladora de la Actividad Urbanista de la Comunidad Valencia 1994". The reasoning behind this law appears to be have been the idea that development of the region would be better facilitated by the removing the rights and protestations of the local landowners. The logic being that more housing estates would result in better raods and electricity etc. According to a local lawyer, without the law there would be no airports or roads! This has been a godsend to the already wealthy class of landowners, who ,with the opportunity to expropriate legally held land for a fraction(10%) of the market price and have part of their costs partly paid by their victims, have grown immensly rich. No one would be surprised if the politicians were not taking their cut too. The landowners, who include farmers and foriegners have no allies here and as such are treated contemptiously The real effects of the law are as follows:
The law is unique to Valencia and is being contested in the courts in Madrid. This should be a European issue and in fact it is a flagerant breach of universal land rights. It is the duty of all citizens in the region to protest, until the offending law is repealed.
Update 28/02/03: Law accessible in Spanish on the web: http://www.cop.gva.es/espa/urbanismo/normativa/1994/241194.htm |
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| My heart goes out to all the victim's of this outrageous law, I was, as of this morning, in contact with various developer's as I am thinking quite strongly of buying in Spain, but now I'm not so sure, it isnt just in Valencia as I was led to believe at first, so where does that leave prospective buyer's?. Spain is a great country with wonderful people and I have missed living there since having to move to Mexico, I hope the situation changes and local's and ex-pat's alike can live once again without bully boy tactics.If anyone has further updates I would appreciate it if they could let me know.
mdymyd@prodigy.net.mx 28/2/2003 |
| It is nothing short of theft. I am one of the people caught up in this terrible problem. There are thousands of us - all nationalities living with the prospect of losing our homes because we cannot affort to pay the exhorbitant prices being asked towards the infrastructure of the new developments. The majority of us are unable to afford proper legal representation and will be homeless after spending our life savings on a home for our retirement.
Anne 8/2/2003 |
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It is an absolute disgrace, I don't suppose any of the council workers/builders have had to loose their land and money they will be laughing all the way to the bank. Compensation should be paid to all those that have been affected.
V M Rowland 18/1/2003 |
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Today our familly is ruined because my father (a norwegian architect) tried during 25 Years to have his land owner rights recognised (he inherited from his brother wonderful and huge parcels situated close to benidorm). Extraordinary taxes, lawyers fees, for nothing... never, never buy land !
paula pol.eger@wanadoo.fr 14/1/2003 |
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I am interested in this law because it may affect me. Is there an English language tranlation or summary that you could refer me to. Can they take land from the gardens of other urbanisations?
Richard Merrall Richard@rmerrall.freeserve.co.uk 22/12/2002 |