Torrox Town Hall has proceeded to demolish a house belonging to a British couple that was built illegally in the Pago de Santilla area.

According to the Town Hall the couple did acquire a building licence in 2002 but what they built was not what they had permission for. The couple lost their appeal in the provincial law courts in 2011.

The court sentence considers it proven that the owners bought a plot of land in the year 2000 measuring 1,451 sq/m on which stood a ‘house in ruins,’ measuring 21 sq/m on land considered green-belt (no urbanizable) – they would have needed 25,000 sq/ms of land to build there.

In 2002 the British couple obtained a building licence to conserve the house in ruins; i.e., prevent it from deteriorating further by reinforcing the walls and substitute the missing roof. The licence did not give them permission to extend the house in anyway. It did give them permission for a pool (alberca).

Instead the couple went ahead and built a small chalet, complete with basement, pool, building a terrace around the house, which all told covered some 240 sq/m.

Consequently they were fined 5,400 euros, banned from building anything else, cover all court costs and ordered to pull it down at their own cost.

The Mayor of Torrox, Óscar Medina (PP), said that this has been the first dwelling in the campo that has been demolished in the last 20 years. He said that the owners had ignored the court sentence from 2011 and had ignored the Town Hall, as well. He explained that the law court had finally handed him an ultimatum to have the house demolished, which they obeyed, saying that the Town Hall will now pass them the bill for the demolition work.

The letter from the law court to the Town Hall, dated September 2021, ordered the Mayor to go ahead with the demolition without delay, within one month, otherwise they would incur a charge of disobedience and failure to aid authority.

The cost of the demolition work, which amounted to 28,700 euros, will leave intact the original structure of 21 sq/m that correspond to the building licence issued.

According to family members, the couple had followed local advice, built the dwelling, costing the 500,000 and paid a fine to the Town Hall for 70,000 euros. Furthermore they complain that there are many such dwelling in the same area, built around the same time, and they have had no trouble.

Editorial comment: decades back the general way of dealing with building a new cortijo was obtain a licence for obras menores, build what you want, pay the fine and that was the end of it, but those days are long gone.

You can’t do that in the UK and you can’t do it here now yet foreigners are still listening to people saying “build and pay a fine; it’s cheaper and faster.”

They are also still listening to people saying “put a lower price in the deeds and the rest paid in black.” Don’t do either, because it will come back and clobber you further down the line.

Apply the same caution as you would in your home country and do not, under any circumstances, do what you would not back there.

(News: Torrox, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)