Councils to get power of ‘express’ demolition

A NEW LAW approved yesterday by the Andalusian Parliament will grant councils the right to ‘express’ demolitions of illegal buildings in their municipality.
The Reglamento de Disciplina Urbanística gives councils the right to obtain a demolition order on constructions that are “manifestly incompatible with urban planning” within a maximum time period of one month from the beginning of legal proceedings.
The new law will affect constructions that have been denied a building permit, constructions built on land designated as non-urban or reserved for public works and constructions built on public land without a proper concession.
The so called “derribo exprés” (express demolition) is just one of a series of tools the tough new laws grant councils in an effort to stamp out illegal builds across Andalucía. Once legal proceedings are begun under the new laws, house owners will have between 10 to 15 days to be heard.
The Junta de Andalucía’s housing minister, Juan Espadas, said that the new law “tries to avoid the situation where within 12 months of digging being detected, there is already a finished house with people living in it”.
Sr Espada said the laws were “pioneering in Spain” and would also affect architects and power companies. The laws make it obligatory for the land register to note whether a particular construction’s building licence has been challenged, whether a judicial sentence is pending or whether it is excluded from the council’s current land plan for the municipality. Under the old legislation, the land register was not even obliged to list whether a construction’s building licence had been denied.

Power companies will also be unable to supply houses with electricity, gas and water if the owners are unable to provide a licencia de primera ocupación (licence of habitability).
Sr Espada said: “The main purpose of these laws is to protect the buyers of off plan houses and ensure they are covered legally.”
The new law also imposes fines of between 6,000 and 120,000 euros for building on environmentally protected or non-urban land. Building promoters can also be fined 150% of the profit made on the sale of illegally built constructions.