A flaw in the system

When the building boom in Spain was in full flow, people would buy off plan, their houses would be built and they would move in before the rest of the work on their urbanisation was complete and the town hall had the opportunity to inspect the work.

At some point in the future, the local town hall would then complete their inspection of the properties and issue Licencias de Primera Ocupación or as they used to be called, Cédulas de Habitabilidad. It wasn’t until these certificates had been issued that the electricity and water companies (Iberdrola and Aquagest) would connect the houses to mains supplies. In the interim period, the builder would pay for the supply of electricity and water – in the case of electricity often by means of a generator.

Now that system didn’t pose a real problem during the boom years because houses and estates were completed quickly to meet demand. Once the economic crisis started to bite though things became messy. Builders, strapped for cash didn’t complete the work required by town halls and so they in turn would not issue the Licencias de Primera Ocupación. As the money dried up, so the people, who had bought their houses in good faith, eventually had their supply of electricity and water cut off. At that point they were in a “catch 22” situation.

Mindful of the misery that this sort of situation creates, Orihuela council have now decided to legalise 1,572 houses on Orihuela Costa this month and a further 536 shortly after. It has taken two years of deliberation to reach this point but now, the municipal technicians are happy that any defects in the houses are too minor for them to withhold the Licencias de Primera Ocupación any longer. That means that the owners will soon be connected to mains electricity and water.

It would be easy to blame Orihuela town hall for being tardy in this respect but of course their duty is to protect the buyer and make sure that builders complete their houses to the appropriate specifications. It would be very wrong of them to issue certificates like confetti.

No, in my opinion the fault lies in the system which I assume had been adopted to expedite occupation of newly built houses. I don’t know about other countries but in England, where admittedly the pace of building new houses was slower, inspection is an ongoing process such that, when a house is completed ready for occupation, it is already connected to mains supplies including a connection to the nearest telephone exchange. As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as an illegal house in Britain.

Perhaps when the crisis is over and building starts again here in Spain, the lesson will be learnt and houses will be fully completed with their certificates before the owners move in. Perhaps also people will be able to buy their houses by putting down a nominal deposit and will not be required to pay the balance until the house is fully completed because the system of making staged payments has also caught many buyers out in cases where the builder went out of business part way through construction.

In hindsight, It was an huge act of faith on our part when we assumed that, having paid 60% of the price of the house 11 months before the scheduled date for completion, the builder would satisfactorily complete the work. It certainly did not occur to us that there was a remote possibility we wouldn’t get mains gas and electricity after all we were assured by the salesman that connection was a matter of routine.

If we had our time again, we would think twice maybe even thrice before embarking on buying a a property here under these conditions but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have wanted to move here. After all, hundreds of thousands of people did exactly the same as us without a hitch. It is only fair to point out that the horror stories represent a minority of buyers.