Spanish properties at risk in renewed coastal protection scheme

Permalink: Spanish properties at risk in renewed coastal protection scheme
by Gill Montia

A report in The Telegraph warns that thousands of properties in Spain, many of which are owned by Britons, could be confiscated and ultimately demolished.

The Spanish government has renewed its campaign to protect the nation’s coastline in a £3.5 billion programme aimed at restoring and protecting coastal areas from over-development.

The country’s environment ministry has powers to confiscate properties built within 550 yards of the beach and some British homeowners have already been made aware that their properties are at risk.

New and long established dwellings are affected, with one ex-pat interviewed by the newspaper and now under threat of eviction, having bought his property on the Costa Blanca in 1976.

An association of 20,000 property owners has been established to protest against the government’s plans on the basis that the environment ministry is acting illegally by retroactively applying the Coastal Law of 1988 to properties built legally in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, the owners of 4,500 homes in Marbella are still fighting in the Spanish courts to prevent their properties being bulldozed.