Rustic property in La Marina village, Alicante

Good morning.  We are exploring buying a campo property in La Marina village.  It ticks the boxes for near the sea but also being rural and seems to be undiscovered by ex pats (result!!).

However - and there's always an however when buying campo property in Spain - as the properties in that area are on rustic land, it seems that they generally do not have habitacion certificates.  This seems to be the norm.

So 2 questions.  Is this something that can be obtained in due course?  And is it possible to get a mortgage on a place like this?

Obviously we will seek legal advice but just looking to see if anyone has experience of this?

Thank you x

You should seriously take in to consideration the lack of amenities on any Campo ..this is normally the reason for the property not being already bought by expats ..if you are only looking for a holiday home then you should take security into consideration and the fact that you will need to speak Spanish as well .. these are the main reasons for expats buying in populated area's near the coast.

Hello Windtalker - yes thanks for the advice.  I'm all clued up on life in the campo thank you as have done it already!  Just need advice on the legalities of no habitacion certificate rather than my choice of where to buy!  Gracias! 

Hello zippy and welcome to EOS.

In Spain other peoples past experiences are no guarantee to future experiences. In Spain you can visit any government authority and ask a question and get 10 different answers, sometimes from the same person. Usually a property without a  habitacion certificate or illegal build will be offered for sale at a reduced price. If you are brave enough to purchase a property of this kind, I would find a local Lawyer who has already dealt with several properties in the area. Don’t forget to add the cost of dealing with this to the purchase price. You will obviously have legal costs, possible compensation to the government to buy your way out of the problem and at worst case scenario demolishing costs.

I think it is unlikely you will be able to obtain a mortgage from a standard lender on this type of property.

Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear.

Hello Zippy, welcome to EOS.

I would strongly advise against buying any property that is registered on "suelo rustico". It is very unlikely that you will ever get it legalised and it is impossible to get a mortgage on an 'illegal' property. This is not a headache, but a chronic migraine that will never go away. It will be difficult to sell if not impossible and you will have the problem of your property potentially being demolished in the future as Kavanagh mentioned, at your cost. Actually, if the property is built on rustic land I don't think it can even appear in the land registry, so it doesn't officially even exist as such.

Only consider this type of property if you are never going to sell it and are prepared to run the risk of losing it and not being able to build on the land either if it does happen. Speak to a lawyer before doing anything and check the land registry.

Regards,

Ian

Thanks for your responses which are most appreciated.  I've done my own digging around so know that it is probably a no go but thought I'd see if anyone has beaten the system so to speak. 

We bought a 3 ha finca with a casa apero (smallholders shed to keep tools, plough, etc) in La Vera, Extremadura in 2008.. We got permission to "repair" the tiny 25 sq m property, lifted the roof a metre and added another floor, built an extensive tile-roofed porch  (to dry pimientos, lol).....and got electricity connected.  We turned it into quite a neat little cottage. We had a lot of support from neighbours, builders, lawyer and even the notary was on our side. It is a very Spanish area, no Brits around. After a couple of years we managed to get it registered as a house. So it can be done, but you need to be very patient and not have money worries as it's a gamble. We would not have done it if we knew what was involved but in those heady days  the owner of the property said (so to speak) "yeah, do it up, move in, get it regularised,,,,piece of cake"......and we took this at face value. It was definitely not a piece of cake...but all's welll that ends well.