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UNLICENSED BUILDING WORKS IN THE VALENCIAN COMMUNITY
6 April, 2020/0 Comments/en News /by Mario Signes

   Article 28 of the R.D.Leg. 7/2.015, of 30 October (revised text of the Land Law) states that in order to authorise deeds declaring a new construction - among many other requirements - notaries will demand, for their testimony, the provision of the act of conformity, approval or administrative authorisation required for the construction according to the legislation on territorial and urban planning, that is to say the LICENCIA DE OBRAS (building permit).

   But can works carried out without a licence be legalised?

   The same precept, in paragraph 4, establishes a procedure for "constructions, buildings and installations for which it is no longer appropriate to adopt measures to re-establish urban planning legality that imply their demolition, because the corresponding prescription periods have elapsed".

   In the Valencian Community, these time limits are determined by Law 5/2014, of 25 July, on Spatial Planning, Urban Planning and Landscape of the Valencian Community, which was amended last year by Law 2.019, of 5 February (IN EFFECT FROM 8 FEBRUARY), which has established that, on undeveloped land, whether common or protected, there is no statute of limitations period. Article 236, "Works completed without a licence or without complying with its determinations. Period of expiry of the action to order the restoration of urban planning legality" establishes in paragraph 1 a period of expiry of FIFTEEN YEARS from the total completion of the works. However, paragraph 5 states that "the fifteen-year period established in the first section will not apply to actions that have been carried out on land classified in the planning as green areas, roads, open spaces or public uses, land or buildings that belong to the public domain or are included in the General Inventory of Valencian Cultural Heritage, nor will it apply to land that cannot be developed. In these cases, there will be no time limit for the expiry of the action, in terms of the possibility of restoring legality and repairing the property referred to in this section to its previous state".

    Therefore, on urban or developable land, it is possible to declare unlicensed works completed before 20 August 2010: the entry into force of Law 5/2.014 was on 20 August 2014, so the FOUR YEARS established by the previous town planning legislation as a limitation period have already passed; those completed after that date are now subject to the 15 year period established by the aforementioned Law 5/2.014.

   In non-developable, common land, it is possible to declare the works completed before 20 August 2010, according to the above; but those completed after that date are subject to the regime of imprescriptibility of Law 5/2.014.

   And in undeveloped PROTECTED land, only those completed before 1 February 2002 can be declared, because at the entry into force of the previous Valencian Urban Development Law (Law 16/2.003, of 30 December), on 1 February 2006, which already established the imprescriptibility for protected land, the FOUR years had already passed, the expiration period of the legislation in force until that date.