ALLEGATIONS OF UNLAWFUL PROPERTY TAX DEMANDS

The Partido Popular has asked the Junta de Andalucia to relieve the Socialist-controlled local council in La Viñuela of responsibility for urban planning. The request follows reports that hundreds of owners of illegally built properties in the municipality have been asked to pay a “voluntary tax” of up to 12,000 € to make their properties legal. The town’s PP spokesman, Francisco González, said the people affected, mostly foreign residents, built their homes with a licence granted by the Town Hall, but are now being told that such licences are no longer valid on judicial order of the Junta de Andalucia. Sr González said that the town hall’s demand for money is not part of any recognised judicial procedure. The town’s Socialist mayor, Juan Millán, has denied asking for the tax to be paid and has blamed a third party for “possible fraud” in the matter. But some owners claim that they have already paid the tax in the municipal office. The Junta has said it will investigate the tax allegations which a spokesman described as “unheard of”. Meanwhile the Environment Prosecutor has announced that a helicopter is being used to fly over Malaga province to search for illegally built properties. The Guardia Civil’s SEPRONA environment department will man the flights and take photographic and video evidence. The first flight took place last and a Guardia Civil spokesman said SEPRONA is particularly concerned about illegal constructions in forestry areas because of the fire risk.

TOLOX MAYOR ON TRIAL

If a Malaga judge has his way, Tolox Mayor Juan Vera will spend between one to two years in jail for granting building licences for more than 2,000 homes in the town. Construction was halted but if it had gone ahead the new homes would have tripled the town’s current population of 2,400. The prosecution told a Malaga court that Sr Vera, of the Andalucista Party (PA), has committed as many as 23 urban crimes by allowing construction on rustic land. In his own defence, the mayor said there was no urban plan for him to follow. He said the charges were politically motivated and that the town’s infrastructure could supply water to at least 20,000 people.

ABANDONED VILLAGE CAUSES A STIR

Hundreds of people rang up after the owner of a tiny abandoned village in Castilla y León, just off the N-122 northeast of Soria, put up the 6,000 square metres of rustic land with three houses, a church and livestock enclosures for sale on the Web, for the princely sum of 48,080 euros. The hamlet has no water or electricity, but the owner said a high tension line is just a kilometre away, and there was plenty of water for a well. No-one has lived in Conejares for more than 70 years. The posting prompted on-line discussions with ideas ranging from creating an agrarian cooperative to getting together a group of 50 people to invest in Conejares and repopulate the village. The bewildered Mayor of nearby Ólvega, on which the hamlet depends, told reporters: “It’s not even a village, it’s just a hillock where there used to be some animal enclosures, and now there’s nothing left.” Now someone else has come forward, claiming ownership of two of the ruined buildings. Ana María Calvo said she believed one belonged to her father and another to her mother. She has managed to unearth a title deed for one of the enclosures which dates back to 1933 and names the owner as a man she thinks was her great-grandfather. Sra Calvo said she knows of other local people who have always believed they owned part of Conejares.

SPAIN LOSING ATRACTION FOR INVESTORS

According to a report on Foreign Direct Investment by the Global Policy Council, Spain is rated at the 22nd most attractive country for American investors and the 33rd most attractive one for Asian investors. However, for European investors Spain dropped to 47th place on the list. According to the report, the top ten countries were China, India, the US, the UK, Hong Kong, Brazil, Singapore, the Arab Emirates, Russia and German, in that order. The least attractive were Indonesia, Poland, Central Asia, South Korea and the Czech Republic.

GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESCUE ´BRICK´ INDUSTRY

Addressing a conference at the Caja Vital savings bank in Vitoria last week, Economics Minister Pedro Solbes said he did not believe the government should come to the rescue of the construction industry, which is currently at a standstill. He said he would welcome any “sensible idea” about easing the crisis as long as it did mean the government substituting the construction and real estate companies “when things go badly”. He said: “I find that very difficult to accept”. When the mortgage crisis began to hit home owners last October, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero asked banks to “keep the financing tap” open to real estate companies which he said generated wealth and a high number of jobs. Last week, Sr Solbes said one way out of the crisis was for the construction companies to build so-called protected housing, equivalent to the UK’s council housing, which were in greater demand than more expensive housing.