Rob Horgan
VULNERABLE Estepona residents fear they will be thrown out of their homes for not being able to cover ‘enormous’ infrastructure charges.
After a 20-year battle with homeowners – many of them expats – Estepona Town Hall has given the green light for a €6million roadwork project to begin at the Valle Romano urbanisation.
Some 200 residents have long been protesting the project for which they will be charged up to €45,000 each, a fee many insist they simply ‘cannot afford’.
And while the town hall claims to have reached an agreement with residents to ‘unlock issues blocking the works’, Valle Romano residents insist no such deal has been brokered.
“We have been told absolutely nothing,” one resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Olive Press. “No agreement has been reached and nothing has changed.
“Most of the people who live here are elderly and have very little money. They are scared their homes will be embargoed and they will be out on the street.”
Fellow resident Chris Gentle added: “The place already looks like a bomb site.
“Several residents have contacted the ombudsman in Madrid but nothing has ever come to fruition.”
In fact, the Estepona Expat Association even appealed to the European Union to intervene, as reported in the Olive Press in October 2014.
However, construction firm OHL has begun work and residents are expected to pay up before the next phase of construction begins in March.
Contrary to what residents say, a spokesman for the town hall confirmed everything ‘had been agreed and finalised’ for the work to go ahead.
“The town hall has been responsible for developing the ground, drafting the plans and agreeing terms with the homeowners to unlock an issue that had dragged on for more than two decades,” he said.
“It is a major project that affects about two hundred residents who are obliged to bear the costs of these works.”
Just like Land Grab in the Costa Blanca region this is yet another iniquitous example of Spanish theft from owners who no doubt bought in good faith and were not told by the selling agent, developer or lawyer that this could happen to them. It just goes to prove you cannot trust the Spanish property system even when you think you’ve covered everything, imagine how long the contracts would be if it included anything including rights to breathe in Spain??
Only in Spain, I expect the town halls will be happy when they driven the damn foreigners from their shores.
But re-populate spaces with Russian, Chinese and S. American ‘investors’ who can buy residency with a EU 500,000.
What a great ad for home buying in Spain – where’s that Derek when you need him to comment on just how great life in Spain is.
This has something of the third world about it, they never learn do they. Why is Spain incapable of running anything properly? So what are the EU going to do about it? Are they going to stand up for these people and show us that there is a reason for their existence? Will the Estepona Expat Association do the same as SOHA and try to take this to the ECHR only to be told that they will have to wait years for a hearing?
Yet more bad publicity that will do the Spanish property market no favours whatsoever.
I’ll put my opinion as simply as possible.
Definition of “great”: of ability, quality, or eminence considerably above average.
I don’t see that it says it has to be without flaw, perfect or utopian in that definition.
Life does not need to be perfect to be great.
There are lots of positives to living in Spain – a mature and reasonable perspective helps to keep life in balance taking the positives and negatives in to account.
Who’s their lawyer and is their any detail available on the history of this issue OP?