Please advise what to do, we need to legalise our house!

Back in Dec 2002 I brought a small plot of land with planning to build an almercien ie, small warehouse under 65 sq meters in Coin, the land is classified as irrigated and it has lot of orange trees etc. We have the deed etc and the town hall permission for 65 sq meter building. Un known to us We employed a builder who did not get a building permit or an arhitec project, when we found this out we stopped him from proceeding but the house was already built, all accept the water and electric connected. This was over 5 years ago and we were told to just sit on it, and wait and if the town hall didnt pull it down we could register it on the title deeds after 5 yrs.

We have never been able to get the town water connected as the house is not registered on the title deeds yet and neither is the electric, as we have been told this we have never tried, but we are fed up with roughing it up when we visit with only gas and lamps ,and having to carry in water we now visit less and less, we would love to get it legal and have been told it will a long time and money and no gaurentee it can be registered, and we still need an arhitect project which is very costly, we cananot ever sell the house without it being legal so please advice us what to do, the lawyer we used when we purchased cannot speak hardly any English so it of no use. Desperate A.T.

The first piece of advice in this situation is not to panic. You have obviously not been told the truth and therefore you now need to get a clear picture.

It is not as expensive to register the property as you may think but you will need the following:

• Architects certificate stating that the property is more than 4 years old (around 800 Euros).
• Town Hall certificate stating that the property has not had a disciplinary case filed against it in the last 4 years and therefore they are not entitled, by statute, to bring an action (small fee of a few Euros)
• Signing of registration at the Notary office, which will cost you 1% of the declared price (if you declare 70.000 Euros it will be 700) and around 1000 Euros in notary and land registry fees.
• Registration of the deeds at the local Notary Public.

If you use a lawyer to complete all the matters you should expect a fee of around 2.000 Euros but, provided the Town Hall´s certificate is correct you will finally have your property registered and will be able to sell it or mortgage it.

If you want that we assist you please advise as we are able to finalize the procedures and provide you with a complete title with the property formally registered, after which you will also be entitled to connect water and electricity.