David Laver
Last month I spoke about the importance of having your property properly registered. This month I would like to explain to anyone thinking about selling their rustic property here in Andalucía about a new document being requested more and more by the buyer’s solicitors and, most importantly by banks and lenders.
The document is called “Certificado de Ausencia de Expediente Sancionador y Antigüedad Municipal” (CAESAM for short!).
There are two main reasons for this document; the first is that it tells the buyer’s solicitor and bank that the Town Hall has no outstanding fines or planning irregularities against the property they wish to purchase. The second reason dates back to the original boom in building in the Spanish countryside.
Many properties built on rustic land within the last 10 years were built with the correct plans and licences. Unfortunately, an important part of the registration process was then missed called the “Licencia de la primera ocupación” (First Occupation Licence or LPO for short). When the building of the property was finished a document called a “Fin de Obras” was created. The finished property should then have been inspected by the Town Hall Architect to give the property an ‘LPO’.
This document tells the buyer’s solicitor that the property was built according to the plans submitted, built to the required quality and had been registered as such. For many properties this was not done, as at the time it was considered unnecessary.
Neccessary Paperwork
If you own a property on rustic land and do not have the ‘LPO’ the likelihood is that you will be asked to supply the ‘CAESAM’ to the buyer’s solicitor or their bank.
With the tightening of rustic planning laws many solicitors and banks see this new document as a vital part of the searching process and will not allow their clients to purchase without a least one of these documents being available.
The reality is that an important part of the original registration process was missed and this needs to be corrected. The procedure is one which now falls on the owners of properties who wish to sell.
Assuming that the property is correctly registered and has no pending fines or sanctions it is quite a simple process to obtain this document but the cost depends on where your property is located.
The ‘CAESAM’ can take up to 6 weeks to obtain but has no expiry date. If you are looking for a quick sale and completion it may be worth having this document in place when the property is put up for sale and not at beginning of the purchase process when the potential buyer will have to wait.
Junta de Andalucía
As a buyer looking to buy rural property here in Andalucía, the time has never been better. With regulations having been tightened it gives transparency to the purchase process. Buyers’ solicitors are aware that the Junta wants to clean up bad practice and is looking at every new property purchase here in the countryside to make sure that all relevant paperwork is available and correct. Many processes that should have been completed when current owners purchased but at that time were deemed unnecessary are now a standard requirement. Unfortunately there is a cost to this and it is one that lies with the owner!
