Tag Archives: habitability

New legal requirements for holiday homes

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Our costs welcome millions of visitors during each season. Not all of them are owners of an apartment or a property or stay in a hotel. The majority of them decide to rent a holiday home during the stay. A new legislation fights against the black market on this sector and wants to guarantee the maintenance of our touristic brand.

The new legislation addresses to the touristic sector not (like in the past and without any great success) to the housing sector itself. This law considers a “vivienda de uso vacacional” those properties that are conceded by the owner, directly or indirectly, to other persons in exchange of a consideration. Because of this, every accommodation must have a “cédula de habitabilidad” and ensure that there is enough furniture and equipment according to the number of offered places for visitors. The “cédula de habitabilidad“ is a proof of flat’s habitability which is prepared by the architect and has to be proposed at local housing authority.

How to convert a house or an apartment into a „vivienda de uso vacacional“? The law simplifies this procedure by using the so-called „régimen de comunicación previa“. Hereby it is only necessary to display the intention to rent the flat at the local administration and without any delay it could be started with renting. In this display the owner declares the responsibility to ensure the necessary amount of above-named equipment. He also needs, besides the identity card, the „cédula de habitabilidad“, a confirmation of energy supply and an insurance contract with an adequate coverage.

In this point the municipality is getting involved. This means that it is possible that the community charges a certain fee which could be established in the financial regulation. It would be desirable that administration wouldn’t take advantage of this to generate new revenue. The law intends to secure the quality of the offered holiday homes and it doesn’t want to increase costs which could have the opposite effect namely a promotion of shadow economy. The success of this law depends on an easy handling without further costs as well as on a resolute control.

A holiday homes status as a “vivienda de uso vacacional” means that it could not be turned into a main or secondary residence. The owner has to register guests’ personal data and, in accordance to local security service, send them to the central administration of the police. The stay in a holiday home with this status could not last longer than three months.

Another question that should be answered is that it is not allowed to split the holiday homes. Some owners of larger estates usually rent single rooms to different persons. Or in some cases there are different segregated fully furnished apartments. In these case the law states that rent is only possible if there is an own „cédula de habitabilidad“ for each lodging. If there is none, the „régimen de apartamentos turisticos“ is applicable. For this it is necessary to show a reception with at least 10 square meters. Furthermore the minimum standards for hotels like weakly cleaning are to be maintained.

Carlos Prieto Cid, Lawyer

This article in German

Legalization of buildings outside the law

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Traditionally it has been possible in our country to legalize buildings outside the law through the mere passage of time. However, the Law 8/2011 has added new requirements when recording new buildings in the register of deeds, giving more legal security to the system.

When selling a property, the buyer usually requires financing. To obtain financing is not only very difficult nowadays, due to the current banking situation, but also virtually impossible if the buyer can not offer a mortgage to the bank that lends him the money. To make it possible for the bank to register the necessary property mortgage, the real value of the estate to be charged should be reflected in the register of deeds. This is only achieved when the elements that provide greater value to the property, that is, the existing buildings on it, are properly registered. To register these edifications, a notarial declaration of the new building is always been necessary and this document must be submitted to the register in order to be recorded, accompanied by many documents to control its urbanistic legality.

Despite this, there was always a back door to buildings that violated the law, which could end up sneaking in urban registration of the property, with the economic and financial consequences discussed above. The mere passage of time with no reaction of the relevant planning authorities, the municipalities, leads to the possibility of regularization of these illegal edifications. As the deadlines for the sanctioning procedures passed and the planning authorities could no longer prosecute these buildings, they could end regularized, if certain conditions were met. But in the present days, the last reform of the Land Act we mentioned above, has added a key requirement, prior to the possibility of recording the irregular building in the register of deeds: we should show a municipal certification defining the content of the situation outside the law of the building we intend to record.

Article 20.4 of the Act indicates that
“4 …. in the case of constructions, buildings and facilities for which no appropriate measures to restore legality involving urban demolition can be taken, because the relevant limitation period has passed, the registration record of the completion of the work shall be controlled by the following procedure:

  • a) the notary deeds with the statement of a new building can be recorded in the Land Registry if they are accompanied by a certificate issued by the City Council or by a competent technician, or a descriptive notarized certification of the property or a cadastral descriptive and graphic certification of the property, when these documents confirm the completion of the work in a specified date and the description coincides with the title. For this purpose, the Registrar shall verify if there is a notation in the Register of Deeds because of the initiation of an urban discipline procedure for the property subject of the construction, building and installation in question and that the site is non demanial or affected by easements for public use.
  • b) The registration entry will record the outside-the-law position of all or part of the construction, building and installation, in accordance with applicable urban management. It will be necessary to provide the administrative act by which the situation is declared outside management, with the proper delimitation of its contents.
  • c) The Registrar shall report to the City the respective entries in the cases included in previous issues, and such notification will be recorded in the inscription”

This new regulation, in force throughout the state, which requires prior to registration the provision of a municipal certificate on the content of urban illegality is coherent with the goal to be reached with the law of passing “registration measures designed to ensure and strengthen certainty in the real estate contracts and business, through the Land Registry” and “emphasizing on register protection measures which aim to prevent and prosecute in the future situations that occur today and that are impacting very negatively on investment in real estate, both domestically and internationally“.

Let us hope that eventually these legal measures have the desired effect and strengthen the security image as necessary to encourage property investment, especially by foreigners.

Carlos Prieto Cid, Lawyer

This article in German