The government-subsidised housing project in La Caleta began in 2007, just one year before the economic crisis began. The result was that the 46 dwellings were never finished.

Dozens of hopeful homeowners got their fingers caught and lost their deposits. A total of 551 people put their names down so a draw was organised and the 46 dwellings were awarded. All was supposed to be completed in 2009, with the average price for a 90 sq/m duplex around 114,000 euros. The flats, between 80 and 90 sq/m went for more, 125,000 euros.

Then over the next 14 years what work had been completed was slowly stripped by thieves and quite a few ended up with squatters. Some of those squatters were people who had paid their deposit and they had nowhere else to go. And during many of those intervening years a construction crane towered above it, without maintenance, giving many a sleepless night should it collapse. In the end, the Town Hall had it taken down.

Of course, when the project was first announced, it was proclaimed by the Mayor as an achievement for the town (read: her party) but when things went pear shape and young couple were demanding their money back, well… then, “regrettably,” it had suddenly nothing to do with the Town Hall, despite the fact that the VPOs were on public landed, ceded by the Town Council.

But that’s in the past now. The last family that managed to live in one of them, despite the defects, left in June this year. The Councillor for Urban Development, Francisco Trujillo, announced that a new construction company had taken them on and work has begun to finish them off, with builders working on the facades.

They will come up for sale, but no longer as VPOs, but as yet nobody knows when.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)