If you fancy building or getting someone else to build your dream home to your specifications, then you may wish to look at buying a plot of land.  Essentially, these come in two flavours; urban land and rural land.  The former is within the town limits and the latter is outside.

For both, you will need to employ a Spanish architect to draw up a project plan for your intended home.  I am afraid that this is the case even if you are an architect yourself as it has to be done by someone who has the appropriate Spanish certificates.  Don’t worry too much if you aren’t too sure what you want as the Architect will normally have a range of standard plans that you can modify to suit yourself, and can turn something as basic as a rough sketch into a work of art. .The completed Project Plan will be sent to the College of Architects in Almeria who will check that it meets building regulations and will then give it an official stamp.

Urban build plots

Having a new house built on an urban plot is a fairly simple process.  Each specific municipality will have their own rules and regulations on what you can and cannot build on any particular plot with the restrictions relating to the percentage of the plot that the building can cover, number of stories and maximum height of the building above road level.  You will normally also have to locate the property between 1 and 2 metres from any boundaries and in some cases you will not be allowed windows overlooking a neighbouring property.  Basically, have a look at what has been built around and you will probably be able to do the same thing.There seems to be very little if any restrictions in terms of aesthetics with traditional Spanish villas being built right next door to stylish modern buildings and mock Moroccan forts.

Your architect will obviously take all these restrictions into account when preparing the project plan, and upon sign off from the College of Architects, will apply to the local council for a building licence for an ‘Obra Nueva’ (new build).  Since they are almost always better qualified and more senior than the town hall architects, this can normally be pushed through fairly quickly and easily.

Rural build plots

Rural build plots are significantly more difficult as the Junta de Andalucia (regional government) has been clamping down hard on building outside of the town boundaries and any application for a new building has to be authorised by the Junta as opposed to just the local council.  The first thing to check is that the land or ’finca’ has been classified as ‘building land’ and not ‘protected’ or ‘restricted’.  Next you need to look at the amount of land compared to the size of the property that you want to build.  In Almeria, the basic rule is a minimum 7,000m2 of land to a ratio of 100m2 built property (and this is below 300m above sea level) - above this then the land required increases to as much as a 30,000m2 plot for the same build volume.  Also, there is a restriction on the absolute minimum amount of land required for any new build.  Although technically this is 10,000m2 we understand that you may have to prove that the property is for agricultural purposes and that you are farming the land (i.e. by showing receipts for fertilizer, owning a tractor, proving that you have sold livestock or produce etc etc), so a safer bet is 30,000m2.

Things to be aware of:

• You will have to pay a fee for the building licence of 4% of the cost of the build as worked out by the architect’s computer system.  This is not necessarily the actual price that it will cost to build as you can normally find local builders who will do it cheaper even if you aren’t intending to do it yourself.
• The architect will instruct an aparejador, a qualified architectural engineer, who will supervise the building, carry out on site inspections, and ensure the building is to the required standards. He will issue the architect’s certificates which are necessary to obtain the Certificado de Fin de Obra (Completion Certificate), and the Licencia de Primer Ocupación (Licence of First Occupation). The aparejador will normally charge around 3% of the estimated building costs (see above).
• Stamp duty payable on build plots is 16% as opposed to 7% for a constructed property

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