Mijas authorities on the Costa del Sol have issued fines to 20 owners of what they deem to be illegal homes in the municipality

Mijas authorities on the Costa del Sol have issued fines to 20 owners of what they deem to be illegal homes in the municipality, after they repudiated demands to bulldoze their properties, according to Spanish Property Insight. The homeowners will now have to pay the fines, which are believed to be around 10% of the property value, or face having their assets frozen. “With help from friends you can cope with the first fine, but after that it gets more difficult,” one of the fined owners said in an interview with Spanish newspaper ‘El Pais’. “They can issue you with up to a dozen fines, and there is no budget that can deal with that.”It’s been reported that there are around 8,000 homes in the Mijas area that possess planning problems, approximately a quarter of which are being threatened with demolition.
Back in January, a British couple became the first expatriates to have their Spanish property, located in Almera, bulldozed after government officials ruled that their £570,000 villa had been constructed illegally.