On 26 March 2009, the European Parliament approved the Auken Report on real estate abuses in Spain.  The report condemns in the strongest terms Spain’s town planning procedures and says that real estate corruption is endemic in Spain and that responsibility lies at central, regional and local authority level.

The report also says that the judicial system is ‘not correctly prepared’ to deal with the problem, saying its rulings in many cases cannot be carried out in a way that compensate the victims of abuse.  This has re-enforced the impression among foreigners in Spain of a lack of action and impartiality of the Spanish justice system.

As a result of the report, the EU is threatening to freeze all community funds for Spain until abuses denounced in Brussels by Spanish residents from several E.U. countries are resolved.

It says there is a lack of ‘clarity, precision and judicial security’ in current Spanish legislation regarding the right of ownership, and a lack of application and coherent legislation in environmental matters, and this has led to many of the abuses.  It also notes the ‘greed’ and ‘speculative conduct’ on the part of local authorities.

Marbella, where ‘dozens of thousands of homes have been constructed illegally, and which probably infringe community legislation’ is singled out.  It also names developments in environmentally protected areas in Cabo de Gata in Almería and in Murcia.

The Auken report also attacks the Ley de Costas, Coastal Law, which it says has to be urgently revised to protect the rights of the legitimate owners of property and those who own small plots of land on the coast which have no negative impact on the coastal environment.

Finally it calls on the Spanish authorities to speed up the justice system and compensate the victims of town planning abuses by applying laws already in force.

It’s the third time that town planning abuses in Spain have been denounced by the EU, after earlier reports in December 2005 and in June 2007, but the first time that E.U. funding has been threatened to be withdrawn as a result.

Read the complete Auken Report - Click here.