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The campaign by the Spanish tax authorities to find all newly built structures, alterations or changes of use of properties which have not been declared to the Land Registry is starting to show results.

home 300x200 - Tax Authorities Detect 30,000 Undeclared Properties and Building WorksThe first phase of Hacienda’s plan has covered 486,000 properties in 29 municipalities in Malaga province so far, especially Fuengirola, Benalmádena, Mijas, Vélez, Antequera, Alhaurín de la Torre, Cártama and Alhaurín el Grande.

Inspections have revealed 30,113 buildings (6.2 per cent of the total) which had previously been invisible to the authorities for tax purposes because neither their owners nor the respective town halls had declared them, irrespective of whether or not they had works licences and the necessary certificate of occupancy.
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An Estepona-based lawyer, Óscar Calvo, has succeeded in obtaining a legal resolution which improves the situation for off-plan property buyers.

Houses in Benalmadena 300x164 - Legal resolution changes the situation for off-plan property buyersThose who bought homes off-plan customarily signed a deal with developers and the bank which guaranteed the refund of any monies paid upfront if the property was not handed over as promised. However this guarantee was invalidated once the primary occupation licence was issued.

Now the situation has changed with the judicial resolution obtained by Calvo which eliminates this invalidation process because it is unlawful. Buyers who signed up to this bank guarantee after 1999 can request a refund.

According to Calvo, he was able to push for the court resolution because the law has been badly interpreted.
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Spain’s Constitutional Court has suspended - provisionally - the law passed by the Junta de Andalucía in October to prevent families with limited financial resources being evicted from their homes.

46353 1251686 foto 1 300x225 - Andalucía’s Anti-eviction Law Suspended by CourtThe law, described as a measure to ensure the social function of a property, allowed the authority to temporarily expropriate the use of a property repossessed by a bank so that its original owners could still live in it.

The Constitutional Court has admitted the central government appeal against the law designed by the Junta de Andalucía to ease home evictions by temporarily expropriating the use of houses seized by banks and allowing their owners to continue living in them.

The Andalusian law was passed on October 1st and revoked a previous decree on the same matter which had been passed in April and was also the subject of an appeal on grounds of it being unconstitutional.
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The parliamentary bill to change the rules governing rented accommodation (full name: Ley de Medidas de Flexibilización y Fomento del Mercado de Alquiler de Viviendas) has sparked controversy within the country’s all-important tourism industry.

Flats2 300x225 - Coast holiday rentals under controlThe law will oblige private owners who rent out their properties for short periods of time to meet a series of requirements as well as to comply with the special tourism apartment regulations still to be established by the Junta de Andalucía.

While waiting for the regional authority to draw up this law, and for the central government to define exactly what it considers to be a holiday property, thousands of individual owners have been left wondering what regulations will apply to them.

The potential changes do not just affect a handful of people, but an important sector of the tourism industry. According to the annual financial report produced by La Caixa in 2012, the number of tourists staying in non-official holiday apartments on the Costa del Sol was three times greater than those choosing hotel accommodation. The report states that last year tourists spent 43.1 million nights in properties that are not registered as tourist accommodation, mainly because until now the urban letting law (LAU) has not made this compulsory.
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The Andalusian chief of public works and housing, Elena Cortés, on Thursday called on the central government to organize a conference involving all the regions to debate the burning issue of evictions.

She also hoped the conference would give the Andalusian regional government the opportunity to explain in detail the 1016200 2599486 1 300x225 - Andalusia housing chief calls for national evictions summitnew decree on social housing it approved on Tuesday, under which it plans to seize the homes of the needyiest families subject to eviction for up to three years.

Cortés said the central administration has a "golden opportunity" to advance in the same direction by passing the Popular Legislative Initiative on evictions presented in Congress by the Mortgage Victims Platform, which supports dation in payment — canceling a mortgage by handing back the keys to the bank — social housing, changes to mortgage laws and civil lawsuits, and the halting of eviction procedures.

Cortés explained the region's new social housing decree would come into effect on Friday, allowing eligible families to apply for a temporary seizure of their home at one of the housing protection offices it opened in Andalusia's various provincial capitals last October.
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