Despite Spain’s best attempts to instigate a recovery in its stuttering economy, the practise of bulldozing illegally-built homes – many belonging to British expats – is undermining the country’s efforts to drag itself out of recession, said the UK’s minister for Europe Chris Bryant this week.

During a visit to a number of beleaguered British expats who have been told that their homes are likely to be destroyed due to illegal construction, Bryant remarked that the Spanish authorities’ campaign against former local officials is not only ruining the lives of many hundreds of families, but was also proving extremely damaging to Spain’s economy.

“The housing market in Spain is not going to recover quickly if pictures of bulldozers knocking down expats’ homes are appearing in British newspapers,” Bryant said. Local governments previously issued with building licences for a number of coastal regions in the south and south east of Spain later had them nullified by a higher regional power, rendering many thousands of properties illegal.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to in Spain says they want to find a solution but wanting a solution and getting one are two different things,” continued Bryant. “Obviously it’s not for the British Government to tell the Spanish what to do, but I’m pushing the message hard at all government levels that I meet here that they have to put political willpower into these problems, whether it’s an amnesty, whether it’s a change in the law; whatever the solution that is needed.”

“There is an enormous difference between the British property buyers who just make a cursory legal deal – that is always ill-advised – and those who have done everything they should or could have done but still find themselves in deep trouble.”

The Telegraph reports that a number of British expats have already been issued demolition orders in Andalucia, while Mr Bryant himself announced that the Andalusian Government has recently appointed a full-time official to deal with the worries, concerns and questions of British property owners currently residing in the region.

As ever, the message that a prospective property buyer must seek independent legal advice when buying a property in Spain – advice Viva stresses at every step of the buying procedure – was reiterated firmly by Mr Bryant.

Tags: British expats in Spain, Buying in Spain, Expats, Living in Spain, Property in Spain, Spanish demolitions

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