Land Grab Law

News Articles

SPAIN GETS LAND GRAB LAW ULTIMATUM
16th October 2006

VALENCIA DODGES THE FLAK
23rd December 2005

If you live in the UK and you read the daily papers no doubt you will be familiar with or at least have heard of the so called "Land grab" law which has undoubtedly been the cause of much misery and financial cost for some unwitting purchasers. Therefore this issue is an important one to consider if you are thinking of buying property in the Valencian Autonomous community.

There are basically three classifications for land:

Rural
Urbanizable
Urbano

According to the Valencian Government's Ley Reguladora de la Actividad Urbanística of 1994, all land may be converted for property development (unless it has been deemed no urbanizable on historical, cultural or ecological grounds).

A problem may arise where, for example, suelo rústico (rural land) may be re-designated as urbanizable (IE suitable for development) if the town hall approves a developer's plan for such change of use. If you own a property that is on or adjacent to the proposed new development you may be obliged to contribute to the new development. This may involve having some of your land expropriated and a financial contribution for the construction of roads, drains, lighting and other urban development costs.

Land classed as Urbano has already been developed and generally speaking if you buy property that is on urbano (IE already urbanized) land you will not have a problem.

However, even where land is already deemed to be urbano, always use a competent Lawyer who will be able to advise you on the implications (if any) of buying a particular property and will check future development plans at the town hall. We have a list of competent lawyers that we recommend please contact us for more details.

The Bottom Line

Although the land grab law affects a minority of property owners it is clearly best avoided. Hopefully this law will soon be abolished, in fact the latest news is that it has been given the thumbs down by EU commisioners after they finished their review of a report by an investigating team that visited the Valencia region last year. The result is that the EU commission has given Spain an ultimatum to put a stop to the practice.

People can visit www.irwinmitchell.com/Valencia/ for more information.