Many 1000s of people in the Communidad Valenciana (Valencian Community which includes the Costa Blanca) have lost their properties which have been 'grabbed' by land developers. The land developers tend to knock people houses/flats down and build roads, facilities, or new houses. They give tiny amounts or no compensation to the people they've 'grabbed' property and land from. They get permission from the local town hall to do this legally. There is nothing theowners of the property or land can do. Many people have been financially ruined. The European Parliament has investigated and tried to put pressure on the Valencian Regional Government to stop the abuses and amend the law (the land grab law of 'LRAU'). They have got rid of LRAU and replaced it with LUV. Unfortunatly LUV is allowing all the old abuses to carry on.

It is not safe to buy property in the Valencian Community region.

See today's Observer newspaper for:

"Valencia's land remains up for grabs

A new law still favours developers over residents - and is being abused, writes Graham Norwood

Sunday April 23, 2006
The Observer


Earlier this year, Valencia's land-grab laws looked to be history, but the threat to homeowners in this part of eastern Spain is as real as it ever seemed."

For goodness sake. I thought this had been sorted by the E.U.
We are going out to the southern Costa Blanca again next week to continue our house hunt.

Would we be talking about fincas with huge parcels of land that have problems? We are only looking at 1500-5000sqm.