Horizontal Division in Urbanizations means that the land where the different houses from the urbanization are placed belongs to all the owners “in common”.
This Horizontal Division is a way used in urbanizations and buildings where the different owners own the 100 % from their houses and “in community” the land of the urbanization.
So, the land in which houses are placed is considered “communal” areas, and usually used to have different community areas like communal pools, sport areas, green areas, communal roads, etc.
Sometimes, owners of urbanizations use to have some part of land of their own use. For example, the house and the garden, or the private pool. This land is considered then as “private land” or “land of private/exclusive use” from each one of the owners.
“GROUP OF HOUSES” and NOT “URBANIZATIONS” :
Houses in “Horizontal Divisions” are not considered as an “urbanisation”. See the consequences of properties built using this system:
- The land in which these properties are is not classified as “urban”, so is “rustic”. To be “urbanization”, the first step is to convert the land from “rustic” into “urban”……………. in order to do that, the promoter, before building these houses, had to apply to the Town Hall to change the General Plan of Urbanization in the area, including the affected land as “urban”. This change is called in Spanish “Plan Parcial”.
- Being the land “rustic”, the only way to have several houses built would have been to have more than 10.000 m2 of land for each house, and to divide the land in pieces of 10.000 m2 each. But usually, the land does not fullfil with this requirement.
Usually, the builder built these houses without the proper building license, because, as said, the only way to obtain a license for this would have been with, at least, several pieces of land for 10.000 m2. So, probably, the builder built the houses, and the Town Hall, once discovered those buildings without license, fined these properties, even with orders of demolitions.
So, later the builder declared those houses in the land registry, with separate title deeds. But, then, another problem was to divide the land in several portions. Being the land rustic, the only way to get several portions of land was to have more than 10.000 m2/plot initially.
SO, HOW THEY MADE IT? : They used a way that was forbidden after in the year 2006. This way is creating a “community of owners” in the land, formed by the owners of the houses. Instead to have several individual plots, this system resulted in that, each of the owners would have a “percentage of ownership” on the land. So, as the land could not be divided, they will have a percentage of the land.
When the Spanish system detected that this way was used to declare illegal buildings, it was automatically cancelled in 2006.
The main problem for this way is that the several portions of land with the current borders in which the houses are divided in fact, is result of an agreement of the owners, as a “community of owners”.
CONSEQUENCES DERIVED OF THIS KIND OF URBANIZATIONS :
The house cannot be extended, and it is not possible to build any further constructions like shed for pools, garages or any others.
URBANIZATION COSTS:
It was a new recently Law approved in Valencia government were properties built in this way could be lgelaized and so, owners may be requested to make/pay some works to improve the infrastructure in the area like:
- Asphalting roads and access to each property
- Pedestrian areas
- Public lights
- Green areas and parks
- Improving water and electric power and connection
- Connecting the sewage system to mains.
So, it will be necessary to see what kind of works the Town Hall has projected to ask to the owners, and who will pay for it.
Just to point out that the most expensive cost of urbanisation is the connection to mains sewage system from the Town. As these properties use to be in “rustic land” or in countryside, so quite far away from the city centre, then, it is accepted that, instead of connecting with the main sewage system, to allow owners to install septic tank with depuration systems to filter and depurating the wasted water.
TLACORP March 2020.
