{"id":35018,"date":"2024-07-25T15:27:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T13:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cbleon-abogados.com\/?p=35018"},"modified":"2024-07-25T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T13:27:40","slug":"legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal aspects of buying rustic properties in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-white ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Tabla de Contenidos<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#Legal_aspects_of_buying_rustic_properties_in_Spain\" >Legal aspects of buying rustic properties in Spain<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#Who_defines_the_rustic_nature_of_a_property\" >Who defines the rustic nature of a property?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#What_uses_are_allowed_on_rustic_properties\" >What uses are allowed on rustic properties?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#What_can_be_built_on_rustic_land\" >What can be built on rustic land?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#What_happens_if_it_is_built_or_used_improperly\" >What happens if it is built or used improperly?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#Can_an_illegal_work_be_legalized\" >Can an illegal work be legalized?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#What_precautions_should_a_buyer_take_when_interested_in_purchasing_rustic_land\" >What precautions should a buyer take when interested in purchasing rustic land?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/legal-aspects-buying-rustic-properties-spain\/#Carlos_Bano_Law_Firm\" >Carlos Ba\u00f1o Law Firm<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Legal_aspects_of_buying_rustic_properties_in_Spain\"><\/span>Legal aspects of buying rustic properties in Spain<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The purchase of a property in Spain always requires special precautions for those who are not natives of the country, the first of which is to have independent legal advice.<\/p>\n<p>If we add to this that there is legislation on land in Spain, which is enforced by the Town Halls who must ensure compliance with the Law, it is evident that this advice must be more qualified, especially when we are talking about rustic properties.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-35014 size-full\" title=\"Legal Aspects of Buying Rustic Properties in Spain\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana.jpeg\" alt=\"Legal Aspects of Buying Rustic Properties in Spain\" width=\"1280\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana-300x240.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana-1024x819.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana-768x614.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana-370x296.jpeg 370w, https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/aspectos-legales-compra-propiedades-rusticas-espana-760x608.jpeg 760w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/>In other articles, we have distinguished the different legal urban planning nature that land can have, and now we are going to focus on a brief study of what rustic land is.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, having a clear destination, any use given to it or any construction not contemplated in its regulations will be considered a breach of urban planning legality, with consequences ranging from the demolition of what has been built to the imposition of coercive and sanctioning fines.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Who_defines_the_rustic_nature_of_a_property\"><\/span>Who defines the rustic nature of a property?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Article 12 of Law 8\/2007, Land Law, instead of establishing the different &#8220;classes of land&#8221;, refers to what it qualifies as &#8220;basic land situations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, all land is either in the basic situation of rural land or urbanized land. Specifically, it is in a rural land situation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>a)<\/strong> In any case, land preserved by territorial and urban planning from its transformation through urbanization. This land shall include, at least, land excluded from such transformation by legislation on protection or police of the public domain, protection of nature or cultural heritage, those that must remain subject to such protection according to territorial and urban planning for the values inherent in them, including ecological, agricultural, livestock, forestry, and landscape values, as well as those with natural or technological risks, including flooding or other serious accidents, and any others provided for by territorial or urban planning legislation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>b)<\/strong> Land for which territorial and urban planning instruments foresee or allow its transition to the urbanized land situation until the corresponding urbanization action is completed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>c)<\/strong> Any other land that does not meet the requirements referred to in the following section.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In short, rural land will be that which is not functionally integrated into the urban fabric. However, some Autonomous Communities, such as Valencia, do use definitions and thus establish that non-developable land is classified as such when, according to urban or territorial planning, it must be used for the purposes of the rustic nature of the land.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_uses_are_allowed_on_rustic_properties\"><\/span>What uses are allowed on rustic properties?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Rustic land is excluded from its transformation through urbanization, rendering it unsuitable for urban construction, and its use is solely for the exploitation of natural resources. Rustic land has the following uses: agricultural, livestock, forestry, hunting, and any other compatible with the rational use of natural resources.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_can_be_built_on_rustic_land\"><\/span>What can be built on rustic land?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Any construction that is not proper and suitable for the development of any of the authorized uses is prohibited. What characterizes one type of land from another is, on the one hand, that rustic land lacks any urban infrastructure or service, such as water, electricity, sewage, etc.; on the other hand, this land is not intended for construction, so any construction desired must be for the use to which it is intended.<\/p>\n<p>Since a permit from the Town Hall of the locality where the land is located must be obtained to build, it is evident that any construction application on this land that does not comply with the indicated will be flatly rejected. This has led to the common practice in Spain for many years of turning a blind eye to many illegal constructions on rustic land.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we must add, because otherwise, this article would be incomplete, and because we would not be providing accurate information, that occasionally isolated buildings intended for family housing are allowed in places where there is no possibility of forming a population nucleus.<\/p>\n<p>Appropriate authorizations must be requested, and the Town Hall will verify whether the requirements are met. This is an exceptional or infrequent situation of allowing family housing use in rustic areas.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_happens_if_it_is_built_or_used_improperly\"><\/span>What happens if it is built or used improperly?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The inevitable consequence is that it is considered a serious urban planning infringement that will lead to the corresponding procedure for restoring urban planning legality, which will not only involve the corresponding fine but also the requirement to demolish the illegal work, hence its name of restoring urban planning legality.<\/p>\n<p>If the Town Hall acts within the deadline, it can be said that the consequences are very serious for the offending owner. Another thing, as we will see later, is that these works have been done, and the mentioned deadline has elapsed; then, as we will see later, the consequences will be different.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Can_an_illegal_work_be_legalized\"><\/span>Can an illegal work be legalized?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>As we will see later, works carried out without a municipal license cannot be legalized, although they can be declared as existing in the Property Registry under certain circumstances and only for declarative and informative purposes, but never constitutive of any right.<\/p>\n<p>The next problem that will be encountered is the legal impossibility of creating new constructions or modifying the existing one.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_precautions_should_a_buyer_take_when_interested_in_purchasing_rustic_land\"><\/span>What precautions should a buyer take when interested in purchasing rustic land?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The first thing a buyer should do is know the urban planning nature of the property they wish to buy. They can request it from the Town Hall, the urban planning certificate of the land, although they could also do so from the cadastre by requesting a record and certificate about the land of interest.<\/p>\n<p>With this information, they should compare the property they wish to buy and verify that all existing construction within it has the pertinent license or is registered in the Property Registry as existing, although, as we will see later, this does not necessarily mean that these subsequently registered constructions are legal.<\/p>\n<p>The Property Registry records the reality of the property as it has always appeared or in different phases with a license, but it can also record those constructions that have a minimum age, even if they do not have a license.<\/p>\n<p>In these cases, the buyer, upon going to the Registry, will be able to check whether the works are declared or not and, if they are, should require the owner to register them as we will see later.<\/p>\n<p>A crucial precaution about the existence of works that are not registered is that if they lack a license for 5 years, the Town Hall can initiate a procedure for restoring urban planning legality that will lead, after verification of its illegality, to its demolition, in addition to the pertinent economic sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>If a buyer finds that there are illegal constructions within this period, they should take this into account and avoid purchasing that property because the Town Hall&#8217;s actions will affect them, and they will suffer its actions with the demolition of the illegal works.<\/p>\n<p>But if this is important, it is even more important that the buyer should know that having purchased rustic land, nothing can be built that is not legally intended, and since we are talking about illegal constructions on rustic land, this means not only that it cannot be legalized but also that no additional or new construction can be carried out as it would be illegal because it could not be requested with a license, it would be denied, and if done, it would be at the risk of detection by the Town Hall and the corresponding procedure for restoring urban planning legality.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Carlos_Bano_Law_Firm\"><\/span>Carlos Ba\u00f1o Law Firm<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In our <a title=\"law firm in Spain\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/\">law firm<\/a>, we are <a title=\"real estate lawyer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/advice-on-real-estate-law-and-construction\/\">experts in real estate law<\/a>. If you have any questions, we are here to help.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Lawyer Alicante\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbleon-abogados.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/abogado-carlos-leon-asesoramiento-portada.jpg\" alt=\"Lawyer Alicante\" width=\"1465\" height=\"871\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a title=\"Lawyer Google Maps\" href=\"https:\/\/maps.app.goo.gl\/YuezPNWXNtBcHy1V8?g_st=ic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Find us on Google<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legal aspects of buying rustic properties in Spain The purchase of a property in Spain always requires special precautions for those who are not natives of the country, the first of which is to have independent legal advice. If we add to this that there is legislation on land in Spain, which is enforced by the Town Halls who must&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,175,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-real-estate-article-en","category-real-estate-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35018"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35020,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35018\/revisions\/35020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbleon-abogados.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}