Thursday, February 07, 2013

Oh dear

San Fulgencio is catching up with the work that has been going on in the municipality and has discovered 1,419 modifications to properties that it wasn’t aware of and 590 pools that have not been declared. For a town of 19.7 square kilometres and a population of 12,357 that is rather a lot. We also have to remember that 77.6% of the population are foreigners.

The real issue is that the town has lost out on income through the property tax (IBI) to the tune of countless thousands of euros over the years. The mayor now says that they will have to revise the valuations house by house to determine the correct valuation. This will be done using aerial photos which can be used to compare the property registered with the property as it now stands. Since they won’t necessarily be able to date when the alterations were made, I imagine that the extra tax will not be applied retrospectively. 

No doubt there will be a number of cases where the administration is to blame for not keeping up with the paperwork but there could be others where people have shown flagrant disregard for planning rules – possibly out of ignorance of them. There are a lot of companies that advertise in the British newspapers who will offer to do work and tell you that it will be completely legal when in fact that is not the case. I suppose it is possible that some of the alterations cannot be legalised and therefore will have to be removed.

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