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- Liva & Laia : 15th November
The much criticised roadshow held by the Spanish Minister for Housing, Beatriz Corredor, to promote the sales of Spanish property to the UK has come to an end, bur has done little to attract new investors, and less still to reassure current owners that there will be changes to Spain's archaic property laws.
The Minister met with pension fund managers and other groups of both individuals and commercial investors to encourage them to buy some of the country's 700,000 empty new homes. An estimated 61% of these properties are in coastal areas, built principally as holiday homes, and have been unsold since before the start of the property crash, in 2007.
However, this has proved to be no easy task for the Minister, as she has faced three main causes of concern posed by expat action groups here in Spain and from the UK general public :
1.) The LRAU (more commonly known as the 'Valencian land-grab law' - which needs little or no introduction to many expat, however and more detailed explanation is given by clicking HERE .
2.) The Coastal Property Law - Effecting tens of thousands of properties up and down the Costas. Many homes face demoliton, others remain unsalable due to the cloud of uncertainty hanging over them. All due to a law, supposedly to protect the environment, has been mis-applied by many corrupt Town hall officials and planners. More can be read about the law by clicking HERE .
3.) Finally, the collapse of the Spanish property market in 2007 saw many expay buyers who paid deposits on new properties into various bank guarantee schemes have not had their money reimbursed after the homes were abandoned by bankrupt developers. Many such Banks have found loopholes, or in some cases simply said they could not afford to pay. More can be read about the British Consulate's advise on this issue by clicking HERE .
The Minister brushed aside such concerns by saying how these problems applied to less than 1% of expats who owned property in Spain, but perhaps more worryingly added that compensation would only be paid out by the government in cases where the courts had specifically ordered it. As such court cases can be both lengthy and expensive it looks likely that many expat homeowners will go uncompensated.