Meeting with the AVPT
Foreign citizens may own more than half of the estimated 194,000 illegal homes in Valencia region
THE REGIONAL government’s land protection agency (AVPT) answered questions last week about how it will deal with the thorny issue of illegal homes on rural land where building is not allowed.
Over recent months, Costa Blanca News has already provided extensive information about the important role that territorial impact minimisation (MIT) licences will play in this. One of the biggest challenges facing the AVPT is that foreign citizens may own more than half of the estimated 194,000 illegal homes which are susceptible to being legalised with an MIT licence.
Another is convincing town halls to grant the agency authority to act in their municipalities, by ceding its power to find and sanction offending properties, and to assist with the MIT procedure.
AVPT managing director Manuel Civera, who was previously a town planning technician and also mayor of two towns affected by this issue, Alcublas and Llíria, is optimistic they can achieve this.
He said they are ‘taking away a headache’ from town halls, whose planning technicians already have more work on their plates than they can complete and do not have time to inspect rural homes.
Sr Civera explained that the agency was necessary because the system of regional supervision over municipal planning powers was ‘not as efficient as hoped’.
He argued that if town halls have allowed illegal homes to be built, then the regional legislator needs higher powers in order to act, but emphasised this is a voluntary delegation of powers, not stripping municipalities of their authority.
In its first year, the AVPT has accumulated over 200 municipalities covering 60% of the region’s population, including all the provincial capitals and major cities such as Elche and most recently Orihuela.
He admitted some local authorities may not believe they have a problem, or might not want to expose the extent that it affects them, but insisted the idea is to ‘create a new culture in which there is no building without town hall permission’.
The regional government is addressing this long-standing problem by making the legalisation procedure ‘relatively simple’, which involves sorting out problems such as wastewater, utility supplies and rubbish collection, and subsidising MIT plans for town halls, said Sr Civera.
Accompanied by his colleagues, including head of legal services Emilio Pastor and head of inspections Pablo Torres, they assured they have a ‘very specific responsibility’ to stop the ‘serious problem’ of illegal buildings from spreading.
Offences had been increasing as although some fines were levied, there were no demolitions so people got the impression that nothing would be done.
This was partly addressed when the LUV regional planning law was replaced in 2014 by the LOTUP, which introduced the concept of minimisation and was updated in 2019.
Now the AVPT has been created so that people will know there is an agency that will stop offences and pursue offenders, they said.
However, many owners of these homes, particularly foreign citizens, bought them in good faith without realising they were illegal and feel let down by the authorities, banks and lawyers involved for not having protected them, and in some cases feel they have been treated like criminals.
The reason why minimisation is so important for them is that it not only resolves environmental problems but legal ones as well, such as selling and obtaining mortgages or licences for repairs, etc.
In this sense, they advised these homeowners to act before the agency does.
The regional housing department’s commissioner for expats, John Kirby asked whether the AVPT is prepared to deal with a potential avalanche of foreign residents who want to make applications but do not speak Spanish.
Sr Torres admitted the language barrier was not a problem they had considered but ‘maybe we should’ and agreed they would look into it.
Certainly, the technical and legal issues involved require knowledge of specialised terminology, as well as an understanding of why illegal properties can be bought and sold in Spain.
Sr Civera claimed the AVPT has been giving more talks and conferences to explain its role ‘than any other entity of its type’, but appreciated that it ‘takes a lot of effort to explain to residents’.
Mr Kirby also emphasised the importance of clarifying which homes are eligible for MITs, since the four-year statute of limitations on planning offences under the LUV was extended to 15 years under the LOTUP in 2014, and then abolished altogether in 2019.
As such, they indicated that as long as homes were ‘substantially finished’ – i.e. ‘liveable’ as a house – before the LOTUP came into effect on August 19, 2014, then they could be eligible for legalisation, although any subsequent extensions would not be.