When the building boom was in full swing, houses were springing up everywhere – no matter how unlikely the spot. Why was Salobreña’s municipal annex, La Caleta going to be any different?

As the boom wore on and even the most optimistic were starting to get fidgety, the target for new home owners was state-subsidized housing; or Vivienda de Protección Official, as they are known. Accordingly, 19 dwellings began to emerge along road leading down from the main road into the village. But then the bubble burst before they could be completed, leaving brick-clad skeletons.

The developer, Dolmen Consulting Inmobiliaria, went bust and the project went into a coma. In the meantime, the ever-industrious, light-fingered brigade began ripping out window and door frames, leaving the already forlorn facades with toothless smiles.

Months afterwards, the financing entity, La Caixa took possession of the housing and made good the missing fixtures, prior to the final touches and handing them over. Then, last December, the surrounding environs were being sorted out prior to the handing over of the keys, come the summer.

But it wasn’t to be, so the handing over ceremony was `put back to February this year, yet here we are in April and the owners are still waiting. These low-income buyers are the prime victims of what can only be described as bureaucratic muddles. Many had stopped paying the mortgage when the developer went bust, and now they want to start paying again, but things are never that simple, are they?