Is the Data Protection Act Meant to be Protecting Anyone in Particular?
The more you read the more confusing it gets. It now appears that applying for land registry information via the website www.registradores.org is abusive, illegal and almost criminal. The AUDRP (Association for the Protection of Users of Public Registries) has now come up with a clear and undoubted conclusion: that Spanish land registries must not give information freely to anyone who wishes to obtain, for example, details of the owner of a property, how many charges it currently has or how many times it was bought and sold in the last few years.
According to this aatonishing finding, the Spanish Land Registries are providing information on properties and their legitimate owners without proving a “legitimate” interest, however vague this term may be. Certainly, when you apply for a “nota simple”, or a land registry certificate (an excerpt of the current status of a property) you are requested to provide a reason for which you want this nota simple. For example, if you want it because you want to sue someone´s ass off you will use an euphemism such as “legal action”, or if you wish to know if someone is in debt up to their eyeballs you will prefer to say that you will need it to “ascertain the juridical conditions of the dwelling”. And if you have been conned by some cretin in your vicinity and he’s ran away with your money, you will have to say that you require this bit of information so as to know the economical-juridical situation of the house he bought with your money.
Whatever the reason you need this “nota simple” for, it is surely for one purpose: to know if someone owns something somewhere and if he/she does, in what legal state it is in. According to the AUDPR (until recently pretty quiet, but whose bosses now want to be seen as making some noise) giving out absolutely crucial information to ensure the safety of the Spanish property market, already under serious scrutiny, is a fraudulent money-making devious idea because it allows other people to scan the system for obscure purposes (they say) such as gossiping or pure morbid fascination…
The funny thing is that the Spanish Land Registry system, which was specifically designed to bring certainty and security to real estate transactions (or, in everyday language, to prevent con artists attracted by bricks and mortar from making a living), is being copied by other countries because of the protection and usefulness it brings to its users if it is properly implemented.
Now these guys from the AUDPR want to stop not only legitimate property buyers or curious would-be investors from knowing financial information on properties they are keen on, but also impede, inter alia, the Suffolk County Council, Essex County Council Trading Standards, Northumbria and West Yorkshire Police and many more law enforcement agencies in various counties (and countries) from obtaining crucial clues as to the final destination of the proceeds of diverse criminal activities. Soon after this they may want to go after Google for soaking up and divulging the names and addresses of people (and other circumstances) who are in one of the following unpleasant scenarios (details which are all legally accessible to anyone in Spain and beyond through the various Spanish Official Gazettes):
- Do not pay their Council taxes.
- Have missed social security payments.
- Do not pay road traffic fines.
- Become Spanish nationals.
- Apply for a business licenses.
- Have been convicted for fraud and swindle.
- Have been involved in a 3 am brawl in Torremolinos where the claimant, a Mr. Yossef Cheghanou, punched a Enrique Atencia Burgos because the latter said that Spaniards were all a bunch of pr*cks (in Spanish, “gilipollas”, actually I know quite a few!), for which he was reprimanded with a patriotic girly slap to which Mr. Cheghanou responded with an uppercut (good and proper!). This was the subject of an appeal at the Spanish equivalent to the Old Bailey (Tribunal Constitucional) believe it or not and we know all the details.
So now you draw your own conclusions as what information deserves to be hidden from “gossip land” and what is really important to the public, Mr. Cheghanou´s pugilist abilities or a heavily encumbered property?
I hope some bright civil servant will realize soon that the problem in Spain has not and will never be the Land Registry but the total inability to know, once and for all, if one can or cannot build a bloody house on a plot of land without having to later wonder if the planning permission was good enough, just about acceptable or bent as a nine bob note!