Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

PROPERTY

How you can now build your dream home on rural land in Spain’s Andalusia 

Authorities in the southern Spanish region are opening up the possibility of building detached two-floor homes, container homes and other types of property on rural land, something that hasn’t been allowed until now. 

Published: 17 February 2022 17:30 CET
build rural land andalucia
Andalusia, together with Extremadura, are the only regions where you can build on rústico land in Spain. Photo: Q K from Pixabay

In Spain land is distributed into three categories: urbano, urbanizable and rústico.

Urbano land has official municipal accreditation for residential properties to be built on it, urbanizable is theoretically meant for residential purposes but needs accreditation and often isn’t connected to the water, sewage or electricity grid yet, and rústico is rural land where residential properties cannot be built, also called no urbanizable. 

When looking to buy a terreno (plot of land) in Spain with the intention of building on it, it’s essential you check on the cadastre what the plot you’re interested in is classified as. 

Otherwise, you may be bitterly disappointed to find out that the land you’ve bought in the Spanish countryside can only be used to plant olive trees.

This law has been problematic for many foreigners and locals in Spain who want to build a home from scratch, as many isolated plots far from other properties end up being rústico.

Fortunately for those in the southern region of Andalusia, and those intending to have a second home there, the laws are being changed to give more flexibility to prospective homeowners. 

Andalusia’s new land law will allow people to build homes of up to two floors on rústico (rural) land, as long as it doesn’t lead to the development of new settlements. 

The legislation will also help to regularise the situation of 300,000 properties built on rústico land across the region which up to now have been in a legal limbo, including the cave homes found in cities like Granada.

Each municipality will have the final say on how much space there must be between rural homes, but the Ley para el Fomento de la Sostenibilidad del Territorio de Andalucía (LISTA) legislation does state that rústico plots given the green light for construction must be very big, at least 2.5 hectares in size (25,000sqm). In forested areas, the requirement may be increased to 5 hectares.

As large as that may sound, there are rústico plots over 2.5 or 5 hectares on sale in Andalusia for as little as €10,000. 

rural land andalusia

An example of no urbanizable plots in the province of Jaén, as listed on Idealista.

Andalusia is after all the second biggest region in Spain in terms of surface area with 87,600 km², so there is plenty of space in el campo (the countryside). 

And non-buildable land is also generally considerably cheaper than urbano land, opening up the possibility for people to get some good deals. 

READ ALSO: A Spanish architect’s step-by-step guide to building a home in Spain

The legislation also stipulates that constructed houses must not be more than seven metres high (one or two floors)  and that structures must not exceed one percent of the plot in rural areas and 0.5 percent of the plot in forested areas.

As for water and electricity, the regulation establishes that “they must be guaranteed in an autonomous and environmentally sustainable way”, which suggests being off the grid with everything from solar panels, individual water storage tanks and off-grid sewage systems. 

It will also not be possible to level sloping land or change the topography of more than 30 percent of the plot.

Although this is evidently good news for people who want to build a house in rural Andalusia, regional authorities will require each person who is given a building permit to pay the municipality in question the equivalent of 15 percent of the total construction budget. It’s what they call in Spanish ‘una mordida’ (a bite), because this is Andalusian politics after all.

READ MORE:

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

PROPERTY

Spain’s plan to limit temporary accommodation rejected

Spain's left-wing government had planned to tighten its grip on temporary accommodation rentals as a potential means of making more long-term rentals available, but the country's right-wing parties on Tuesday rejected the proposal in parliament.

Published: 18 September 2024 11:53 CEST
Spain's plan to limit temporary accommodation rejected

If passed, the new law would have meant that anyone who wanted to temporarily rent a property would have to explain why and provide a valid reason.

For example, students or researchers would have to show the research contract or course booking to show it would only last a few months.

It would have also meant that if more than six months passed or more than two consecutive contracts issued, it will have automatically become a long-term habitual residence instead.

On Tuesday September 17th, the proposal was ultimately rejected in the Spanish Congress, voted against by Spain’s three main right-wing parties – Catalan nationalists Junts, Spain’s main opposition party the PP and far-right Vox.

The aim in part was to try and rectify the controversial Housing Law, which came into effect in 2023.

In most people’s eyes, the legislation has failed as landlords have found several loopholes to get around the restrictions, prices have continued to increase and the stock of rental properties is even more diminished.

READ ALSO: Has Spain’s Housing Law completely failed to control rents?

As a result of the fear of heightened regulation for landlords, many have left the traditional market and turned to tourist rentals or temporary accommodation instead, which are far more lucrative. 

This has had the opposite effect, increasing rental prices instead of stabilising or decreasing them.

READ MORE: Why landlords in Spain leave their flats empty rather than rent long-term

Seasonal contracts and room rentals allow landlords to raise prices every six or nine months and they not subject to the price limitations of the housing law.

The idea of this new law was to try and set the maximum duration of a temporary rental contracts at six months in order to avoid this, but it could have potentially also caused problems for many who need this type accommodation such as students, digital nomads, those living here on a short term basis etc. 

During the debate, Sumar’s spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón, defended the law saying that it is a “solvent”, “fair” and “precise” proposal, which will help “correct an abuse” and “close the gap through which “Landlords can use to avoid the LAU (Urban Leasing Law) and rent regulation”.  

Far-left party Podemos blamed the ruling PSOE for having left this “hole” in the housing law, but also agreed that the restrictions on temporary accommodation were needed to try and rectify this.

READ ALSO: Has Spain’s Housing Law completely failed to control rents?

Junts (Catalonia’s main pro-independence party) and the PNV, the Basque nationalist party, were firmly against it. They agreed that the problem must be solved and that “accessible decent housing was needed”, but raised the situation of students, interns, residents or workers who need housing for flexible periods.

Junts party member Marta Madrenas warned of the harmful effects that this limitation on temporary rentals can have for university cities such as Girona.

Vox and the PP meanwhile argued that they don’t want to help cover up the mistakes made by the left with regards to the Housing Law.

Vox deputy Ignacio Hoces stated that the increase in seasonal rentals has occurred due to the “failure” of the Housing Law, since this has caused rental prices to “skyrocketed” by 13 percent and the supply to be reduced by 15 percent.

Temporary accommodation, referred to as alquiler temporal or alquiler de temporada in Spanish, is considered to be anything that’s longer than a month but shorter than a year, middle ground between short-term and long-term rentals. It is also referred to as monthly accommodation or seasonal accommodation.

SHOW COMMENTS