Buying Property on the Costa Blanca: Why Checking Property Deeds is so important

Article from Tomas Ballestero Lawyers, Javea

Tomas Ballestero Lawyers · 965 79 29 46 · info@lawyerssoliciorsjavea.com · Tomas Ballestero Lawyers

A buyer views a villa above Jávea. Three bedrooms, a pool, a glazed terrace off the living room, a converted basement with a shower room. The photographs are honest and the price is fair.

The deeds describe a house of two bedrooms and no pool.

This is not fraud and it is not rare. On the Costa Blanca it is close to normal. Work carried out in the 1980s and 1990s — a pool, a naya glazed in, a garage turned into a bedroom, a casita at the bottom of the garden — was frequently never declared. The owner has enjoyed it for thirty years without a single problem. The problem arrives with the sale.

WHY THE GAP MATTERS

The bank. The valuer measures what exists and lends against what is registered. If the registered surface is materially smaller, the mortgage offer shrinks or disappears — often a fortnight before completion.

The next sale. Whatever you inherit from the seller you will hand to your own buyer. The discrepancy does not fade with time; it is simply passed on until somebody has to deal with it.

The Town Hall. Building work carried out without a licence remains an infringement. In the Valencian Community the authorities have fifteen years from the completion of the works to order that legality be restored (article 255 of the consolidated planning act, Legislative Decree 1/2021).

There are important exceptions, and they are the ones that matter. That fifteen-year limit does not apply at all where the work sits on rural land (suelo no urbanizable), on land zoned as green space, roads, open space or public facilities, on publicly owned land, or on a property listed in the Valencian cultural heritage inventory. In those cases the law states plainly that there is no time limit on the action. A pool built forty years ago on rural land is not safe by age.

One further point that catches people out: the applicable period is the one in the planning law in force when the works were finished, not today's. Older buildings can be governed by earlier and different rules.

The habitation certificate. Without one you may not be able to put the utilities in your name, and the notary will ask for it.

WHAT CAN BE REGULARISED, AND WHAT CANNOT

Where the work is old enough and the land is ordinary urban land, it can usually be brought onto the deeds by a declaration of new building by age (obra nueva por antigüedad). An architect certifies what exists and how long it has stood; the cadastre and old aerial photography corroborate the date; the Town Hall confirms no enforcement file is open. The notary then declares it and the Land Registry records it. It takes weeks, not months, and it is not expensive relative to the value it unlocks.

Where it cannot be done, it is normally for one of three reasons: the land is rural; the work encroaches on a setback, a boundary or a coastal or road easement; or an enforcement file is already open. Those three cases are the ones worth walking away from, and the only way to know which you are in is to ask before you pay a deposit.

THE CHECKS, IN ORDER

Compare the Land Registry description against the cadastral record; compare both against what you can see. Ask the Town Hall for the building licence file and for confirmation that no planning enforcement proceedings exist. Where there is any doubt, have an architect measure. All of this can be done in the days between the offer and the deposit contract.

IF YOU ALREADY OWN IT

Regularising your own property before you market it is far cheaper than discovering it when a buyer's bank refuses. It also removes the single most common reason a Costa Blanca sale collapses in its final fortnight.

The notary will not raise this for you. The notary formalises the deed. The agent's job is to complete the sale. Checking that the house on the deeds is the house in front of you is nobody's job but your lawyer's.

We have been dealing with these files from Jávea since 1992, in English, French and Spanish, for clients in Dénia, Moraira, Teulada, Benissa, Benitachell, Altea, Pego and Oliva. The first consultation is free.

Article from Tomas Ballestero Lawyers, Javea

Tomas Ballestero Lawyers · 965 79 29 46 · info@lawyerssoliciorsjavea.com · Tomas Ballestero Lawyers