Arenas Town Hall is not convinced at all by the new Junta law that was supposed to permit unauthorised country dwellings to be legalised.

It is calculated that there are 300,000 such homes in the whole of Andalucia and 50,000 of them are in the Axarquia in Málaga, making it the most affected area within Andalucía.

The new law drawn up by the Junta de Andalucía is known as the LISTA and is the fruit of the PP & Cs regional, coalition administration. It was hoped that it would be very beneficial for homeowners who had built homes in the campo under the impression that they were legal.

There are also those that have bought country homes in good faith only to find out that they are facing eviction and demolition orders.

However, the LISTA contains such stipulations that the dwelling must be on 2.5 hectares of land and within 200 metres of another building, which comes as a blow for many.

The Mayor of Arenas, Manuel Ríos (PP), points out only 2.6% of dwellings waiting to be legalised have that much land around them.

“In the municipality of Écija in the province of Sevilla over 54.77% of illegal dwellings are sat on plots of more that 2.5 hectares,” explained the Mayor, which is far from the case of his village.

But Arenas is not the only municipality in the Axarquía with the same problem because Sedella, Salares, Canillas de Albaida and Algarrobo also have only around 2.38% of their illegal builds on land this extensive – we’re talking about 25,000 sq/m.

The law was supposed to take into account each municipality individually but instead it contains this blanket stipulation, points out the Mayor.

An association that encompasses many property owners in this situation, SOHA (Save Our Homes Association) stated, as soon as the law was published, that they felt it had left them in a helpless situation.

Editorial comment: I can only observe and express something that will probably upset people in this situation: foreigners come here and buy property in a fashion that they would never dream of back in their home country – they just seem to forget any precautionary steps that they would have taken back home and go ahead, handing over their savings, dazzled by the prospect of obtaining a dream home in the sun.

(News: Arenas, Axarquia, Malaga, Andalucia – Photo: E. Cabezas)