This is a small presentation of our Legal Assistance on the purchase/sale of properties placed in Altea area. Altea is a wonderful village, with one of the most typical touristic center in Costa Blanca North with “Altea La Vella” being considered the “second Ibiza”, and with high qulity beaches, and surrounded by spectacular hills, with magnificent views and nature.
It is composed by beaches as:
- L’Espigó
- Cap Negret
- Cap Blanc
- L’Albir
- Cala Barra Grande
- Cala del Metge
In case you are interested to buy or to sell a property placed in this area, TLACORP will help you to take a final purchase or sale decision.
The area of ALTEA is covered by our office in Calpe.
This area covers a wide range of properties, which passes from rustic, to apartments, bungalow, urbanizations, Golf Courses, etc.
Let us detail the main legal aspects of each of these properties:
The type of constructions and properties there use to be main residences for local citizens and residents, second residences, or holiday homes with a high volume of tourist or expats.
A) The traditional type of residence areas were initially owned by Spanish, mainly coming from Valencia, Madrid and Basque Country, and foreigners coming from Center-North Europe.
In a conveyance, with a decision to buy, and out of the normal legal searches to be done in these kind of properties, below there are important points to check:
– Legal and administrative study the history of the construction. To know how the property was built, and how it was developed. It is essential to discover if the property was extended, or if the terrace was covered, or if the porch is now a kitchen, or if the underneath is now a room . This will help to know if the previous owners have made all those works with he proper licenses, or, in instance, if there is any fine or penalty ending on these properties caused for a default of the proper permit.
Also, to know if there is any modification of the initial structure, will help to indentify if the deeds are properly updated with the current situation of the building.
In addition to this, if the property has a penalty for construction, the Town Hall can refuse to renew the Certificate of Habitation, and the new owners can have future problems to renew utility contracts.
– Water and electric contracts: As these are old properties, the supplying companies can ask the buyers to update the installation to change the contracts after completion. This may cause expenses like electrician, or plumber fees, to inspect the property, and others like re-wiring, which, if known before completion, could form part of the commercial agreement of price with the vendor.
– Plusvalia: If the property is old, and is owned by the same owners for a long time, then this tax will be high. This municipality tax must be paid by the vendors, but, knowing this from the beginning will help to take the necessary guaranties to be paid by the vendor.
– Community of owners: It will be very important to know, not only if the vendor is up-to-date in the payments of the community, but to big or important partial payments in the reform or maintenance of the community areas (terraces, façades, parkings, etc), which not always appear in the certifications made from the community of owners.
B) Urbanisation areas as Cap Negret, Cap Blanc, “Altea Hills”, Santa Clara, Alhama, Sierra Altea, Montemolar, Sierra Verde etc.: This area is considering new urbanizations created before or with the Spanish boom, sometimes in big urbanizations.
The important legal aspects to consider at time to buy these kind of properties are the following:
– The property must be perfectly inscribed in the land registry, as “completed house”. It means that the property has been registered, and the builder supplied the Final Works License, the Ten Years Insurance (Insurance which covers during 10 years the structural defects of the building), and the Certificate of Habitation.
– Community areas: The community areas like Golf Courses, commercial areas, pool, gardens, etc, must be completed, or in process to be.
Also, is very important to “read” the community rules to see, for example, if your neighbor can run a business which can disturb you, or if dogs are allowed, etc.
– Community charges: These kind of properties can have high expenses of maintenance. It is very important to know them in the initial steps of conveyance.
– Limitations and rights of use: These areas use to have big infrastructure of electric, water, sewage, rubbish collection, which can affect your property.
Talking about old urbanisations, it is also very important to check the urbanistic consideration of the property before compelting the purchase. These urbanisations has been recently involved in new regulations and normative,, which requires of special and individualized study at the earliest steps of the purchase process.
Other essential points to consider when buying in the area:
As explained above, in these URBAN areas, it is very important to check that the urbanisation where the property is located has all the urbanisation infrastructure completed, such as: roads, pavement, asphalt, connection to mains sewage system, water, electric. The urbanisation infrastructure of these areas was developped time ago, and sometimes it does not fulfill with the modern standards. So, it is quite common to find properties where the owners have to “give” some part of their plots to have bigger roads, or to “pay” some urbanisation infrastrcutures like connection to sewage, pedestrian areas, etc.
You are kindly invited to know more about this point in our specialised section: Semi-consolidated urbanisations.
In these RUSTIC areas, it is very important to check that the area where the property is located is FREE of any kind of urban planning actions or affections, like affections to roads, electric or water infrastructure, connection to sewgae, or installation or septic tank, etc. So, as well as the properties placed in the urbanisations, it is quite common to find properties in rustic where the owners have to “give” some part of their plots to have bigger roads, or to “pay” some urbanisation infrastrcutures like connection to sewage, pedestrian areas, etc. You are kindly invited to know more about this point in our specialised section: Semi-consolidated urbanisations.
Considerations of conveyance in rustic properties are not different from the rest of areas. Please, consult our construction on rustic section, or see our common problems section to see the typical problems for rustic land areas.
For more information regarding conveyance, visit our Properties’ Purchase Process section.
TLACORP is at your entire disposal, in our office in Calpe with special fees, for properties placed in this area.