Spanish planning crackdown threatens Irish investors

IN a move that could affect hundreds of Irish overseas investors, local authorities along the Costa del Sol in Spain want to demolish thousands of properties built in contravention of property laws.

The government of Andalucia is determined that unfettered development along the Costa has to stop. The area has been massively overdeveloped in the past two decades with apartment blocks constructed with little regard for local planning laws.

Now the Andalucian authorities want to demolish about 15% of these illegal developments. That amounts to almost 5,000 properties, many of them owned by Irish investors in holiday apartments.