The Council of Majorca's agency for urbanisation discipline (ADU) is devoting a great deal of energy on detecting illegal building and swimming pools on rural land. The Council says that there has been a significant increase in such development because of holiday rental demand.
This market, part of which is black, has created competition between owners to ensure their properties have facilities to make them as attractive as possible as rentals. A pool is therefore a basic requirement as is a sun terrace. Major renovations of some properties have also been undertaken. This is leading, it is claimed, to a transformation of rural Majorca, the like of which has not been seen before and is increasing the black economy ever more.
The ADU increased the number of inspections in 2016. There were more than 500, but the key problem has become the pools. These have been built in areas, such as the mountains, where there is a high level of environmental protection, which is being breached.
Town halls normally have responsibility for building discipline, but fifteen - generally speaking led by left-wing administrations - have handed this over to the Council. The sanction applied by the ADU is to demolish what has been built. If this is done, then tougher measures are usually not applied. But the Council admits that there is much to still do.
The regional government's legislation on holiday rentals is due to set tougher sanctions, but at present - and despite the efforts of the Council - there is no precise information as to how many pools there are or in which municipalities.
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This is outrageous. I have been asked to fill in my 15 metre horse drinking trough. I tried to explain that the horses like blue tiles and a picture of a dolphin in the trough. But the council seem to think ive built a pool!!
In May 2016 we signed a contract for a villa with an optional pool from TM Grupo Inmobiliario (supposedly one of Spain's oldest and most reputable builders who just won two international real estate development awards).The villa was originally supposed to be completed in July. We provided them with an extension to mid October to complete the pool. They were unable to complete the same because they never filed a permit application for the pool! In the last two and half months, we have heard every lie under the sun justifying this error while TM has been tricking and at time coercing us into completing the sale. As of this morning it has come to our attention that the permit application has still not been submitted or paid for!We have reported this to Majorca Daily Bulletin twice in the hope that they will get this story out and save a lot of other buyers and potential buyers from being in this situation because if this is the conduct of one of Spain's best and most reputable builders, one can not expect much more from others.Why this issue is being covered up by companies, solicitors and media when the Balearic government is trying so hard, at least on paper, to discourage the practice remains to be seen but I suspect some serious problems are simmering under the surface similar to the early 2000's on the mainland.
I didn't think they employed uk MPs in Spain I am so naive I thought only our government lined their own pockets with fiddled expenses and backhanders my god its rife,
Easy answer Mike. It's because by fining the people you can fiddle the books and put money in your pocket. If they do anything for the envoirement at all, the work is deliberately done badly so that it needs re-doing on a regular basis. This way money can be syphoned off for them. Welcome to Spain, it's all about backhanders at every level, the courts are choked up with dealing with it.
It sounds like you want to wage war on everyone why don't you consentrate on getting unemployment down and helping your economy get back on track?