June 17, 2006
The End of Corruption in Marbella
With the current state of the scandal in the town hall in Marbella it is hard to determine when exactly things will get back on track. Planning and development and the departments that had the responsibility of issuing licences are in complete dissary and many of their responsibilities have been removed by the Junta de Andalucia. Regional government has also stepped in with a team of specialists and an interim mayor, to ensure that no further corruption continues. It seems very probable that this will be the way things will be run for the next few years.
The regional clamp down has caught a few developers, projects without proper paper work and at various stages of completion (some completely finished) have been locked down by the police, cordoned off with an official notice to inform anyone interested of the exact reason why the development has been closed.
This form of enforcement is by no means new to the Costa del Sol, up until very recently developers would wait for a week or two and then re-open the site and continue building in the hope of winning more time through the courts. Currently there are stiffer penalties and tougher measures are being enforced. With the recent crack, regional officials now confiscate all building materials, tools and even the computers and records kept in the sales and planning offices, making it very difficult for work to continue.
The construction industry is coming to terms with the fact that times have changed and Spain is no longer as corrupt as it once was, and that the laise faire attitude of regional government has been replaced with a watch dog that will ensure that Town and Country Planning issues will be handled from Seville instead of locally for quite some time to come.
Category: The Costa del Sol Property Market.