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Joy for Britons duped into buying illegally-built Spanish homes as country brings in laws which prevent their properties being bulldozed without being compensated
Friday, March 13, 2015

British couples duped into buying illegal Spanish homes finally have a reason to celebrate after a decade of campaigning led to a change in the law.

During the property boom, Britons who dreamed of spending their retirement in sunny Spain forked out their life savings to buy new homes - only to find they could be demolished and they were not guaranteed any compensation.
But thanks to years of campaigning by heart-broken Spanish homeowners, the law now states homes will not be demolished until they receive a payout.

At the beginning of the last decade, new homes were built in abundance in Spain and buyers from northern Europe were keen to snap them up.
But thousands had been built without planning permission and property promoters were ordered by the court to demolish the homes at their own expense, despite having already sold them.
Although the court would acknowledge the existence of a buyer, there was no guarantee they would receive compensation.

Among such buyers was Peter and Margaret Hegarty, whose villa near the pretty village of Cantoria, south east Spain, was razed to the ground in November last year.
They fought for almost a decade to save their home, which they had spent 35 years saving for.

The couple bought their three-bedroom house in 2005 - believing it had been built legally - but were duped by the then-mayor Pedro Llamas and property developer Francisco Pedrosa.
In 2012, a court found the former mayor guilty of falsifying documents and sentenced him to two years in jail, suspended because it was his first offence.

I WAS FRANKLY DISGUSTED BY SOME OF THE COMMENTS I READ IN THE DAILY MAIL. SOME HAVE NO IDEA OF THE IMMENSE SITUATION.

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