There is no official and reliable data on how many prefabricated or mobile homes exist in Spain. Data from specialized portals, consultants and companies in the sector insist that it is a rising model in the face of the rising prices of traditional housing and the courts have been drawing red lines for years so that the legal margins do not allow the uncontrolled proliferation of these constructions. The latest ruling has come from the Supreme Court and the judges have announced that anyone who wants to live in a mobile home will have to request a planning license from the local council, a process that can take several months and introduces limitations into the equation.
Prefabricated houses are those that are built by putting together elements previously created in a factory: walls, roofs, floors and other structural elements that are assembled on the ground. Mobile homes differ because, in addition, there is the possibility of them being transported once assembled. They are not, in the eyes of the courts, the same as a trailer or caravan, designed to be moved on a regular basis.
The difference is big. Not only because of the price, mobility or the benefits that each type of home has. Also due to the administrative requirements that must be met, the permits that must be requested from local authorities and, as a consequence, the type of soil on which a prefabricated house or mobile home can be installed. A caravan park can be installed on rustic land, but other types of homes, even if they are not of traditional construction, are reserved for developable land, which excludes much more attractive options for a user of this type of house.
The first debates about a “legal loophole” in the matter came in the summer of 2022 from the Prosecutor’s Office specialized in the environment and urban planning. “It is a business model of large proportions and huge profits”, the Public Ministry then explained in a decree that warned that companies specialized in this type of houses were spreading an alleged “legal loophole” to encourage people to buy this type of houses without thinking about the legal requirements: licenses and the planning permit.
This is not a new debate, although the jurisprudence on this and any other issue may take years to settle. More than two decades ago, for example, the courts already resolved the case of a resident of the Alicante town of Cox who built a prefabricated house without a license in a ravine. The consequence, the judges concluded, was the dismantling and demolition of the entire construction. “The installation of prefabricated houses and even caravans on a permanent basis on a plot, constituting housing, requires the corresponding urban planning license,” said the Superior Court of the Valencian Community. almost 25 years ago now.
It is the debate that, years later, the Supreme Court has settled. The judges have analyzed the claims of the company that manages a campsite a few meters from the Platja Llarga in Tarragona and have concluded that, if it wants to install prefabricated or mobile houses between the space reserved for caravans or trailers, it has to request planning licenses from the city council. .
The ruling known this week closes the door to all the interpretations that the Prosecutor’s Office warned about in the summer of 2022: although the law does not textually include the term “mobile home” or “mobile home” in its commercial meaning, there is no intended “legal loophole” that not even the main housing portals recognize. This type of construction is not comparable to a caravan, says the Supreme Court, but rather to a house intended to remain in place, even if it has wheels and can be moved.
A mobile home, this final ruling states, “is comparable to prefabricated houses from the perspective of the enforceability of the urban planning license for land use.” Therefore, a prefabricated house and a mobile home are under the umbrella of article 11.4.c of the Spanish land regulations, which requires having an urban planning license “the location of prefabricated houses and similar facilities, whether provisional or permanent.”
The consequences: demolition and even jail
Any suspicion that in Spain there is a legal vacuum regarding this model of housing with wheels is cleared up with this latest ruling from the Supreme Court, which requires all owners of this type of house to negotiate with the authorities to obtain a license, which among others Things will analyze the type of floor and the area where you want to install it. The consequences of building this type of construction without complying with the regulations are very varied: from having to look for another site if permission is requested in advance to having to dismantle and tear down the house. Without closing the door, in the most serious cases, to criminal proceedings.
A prefabricated house, the Prosecutor’s Office explained more than two years ago, can constitute an urban crime, which in its most serious versions can lead to up to four years in prison in addition to the demolition of the construction. For example in cases where the prefabricated house has been installed on protected ground. One of the most voluminous cases was the one that affected several of these homes built in the Guadarrama Regional Park, whose owners were firmly sentenced to a year and a half in prison, in addition to demolishing the houses and leaving the land as it was.
The rural properties were located in spaces protected by the Natura 2000 Network. A few years later, forestry agents confirmed that settlements of about 150 people were being made, covering the area with gravel to install houses, and even heavy trucks with fairground attractions. Subsequently, the convicts built fences, walls, septic tanks and prefabricated and mobile houses. Were, according to the Supreme“illegal works, not authorizable or legalizable” and, therefore, had to be demolished. Its construction on protected land also led to the consequences of prison sentences.
The route of fait accompli to settle in this type of prefabricated or mobile housing, according to various resolutions of various chambers of the Supreme Court, can lead to the demolition of the property and even the bench for the person responsible for the construction if the infraction goes beyond the license.
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