"I am South American and I came to Spain to work. When I had managed to save some money I decided to buy a house in Carabanchel (Madrid) and I curse the hour I did so. Months later, when I was living there, I received a letter from the town hall which was titled 'Demolition Order'!
I was flabbergasted!
At first I thought it must be some sort of joke, but it wasn't. It turned out that there was an order being processed for illegal works by the previous owner for which there was no building licence. The town hall wanted to demolish the illegal construction.
Nobody had warned me and, as I was informed later, it is really difficult to detect this sort of thing as there is obviously no record in the Land Registry.
Thank God I had contracted title insurance with my purchase. On contacting them they immediately offered me solutions: they appealed against the order of the town hall which gave us precious time.
They then located the seller which for me would have been impossible and between him and the town hall they negotiated a compensation arrangement for me. "
Y. Q. - Madrid
Arguably, every Spanish property owner's worst nightmare - an official communication informing you that all or part of your property is subject to a demolition order.
For years, the Spanish and foreign press have recounted horrific stories of desperate property owners facing the bulldozer.
It seems incredible that even the most diligent buyers who contract the services of good lawyers find themselves facing the loss of their properties some time after they have completed their purchase.
In Spain, this scenario can and does still happen usually as a result of a non-existent or illegal building licence or a change to the inclusion zone of Spain's infamous 'Coastal Law'.
The Spanish building boom naturally created a vacuum for illegal construction works where the greed of some town hall officials led to the granting of seemingly 'legitimate' building licences for projects where permission under a different local authority would not have been allowed.
Later, often in response to a change in local political leadership where the corrupt official had been subsequently removed from office, these developments were retrospectively ruled illegal causing considerable anguish to owners whose paperwork to any legal professional would have looked authentic at the outset.
Herein lies the problem that even today still presents huge risks to property owners buying on new urbanisations or developments. You simply do not know what the future will hold and many unsuspecting owners have lost considerable sums of money as well as the entirety of their investments and savings.
Our Safe Purchase Guarantee in many cases would have offered many owners a solution and of course financial compensation.