Mijas Golf · Buying a home
Buying at Mijas Golf: Los Lagos or Los Olivos
At Mijas Golf the first decision is which of the two courses a house fronts. Los Olivos was rebuilt by Cabell Robinson across the 2000 and 2001 seasons; Los Lagos was refurbished later. The housing beside each differs in age, standard and outlook, and the asking price follows that difference.
- Municipality
- Mijas
- Province
- Málaga
- Part of
- Mijas
Two courses, eight years apart, and a rebuild between them. Los Olivos opened in 1984 and was taken apart and put back together across the 2000 and 2001 seasons by Cabell Robinson, a disciple of Robert Trent Jones Senior; Los Lagos, the older layout, was refurbished later. That sequence is visible in what comes to market. Homes that went up beside Los Lagos in the late 1970s and 1980s are plain, small-windowed and often untouched, while the communities that followed the second course carry lifts, wider glazing and a garage level. Two houses that look comparable on a portal can be a generation apart, and the fairway they face is the quickest way to tell.
The second thing to plan is the paperwork, because Mijas administers this valley from outside it. The town hall sits up in the village. The counter that handles building and business licences is down on the coast, at the Edificio Cala del Sol on Bulevar La Cala 45. Registration on the padrón and the tax desk are in Las Lagunas. None of the three is in the valley, and they keep different hours. If a purchase here comes with work planned — a terrace enclosed, a pool relined, a kitchen moved — the licence question belongs at La Cala before the reservation is signed, not after the builder has quoted.
What is actually on the market in the valley
The market here is deep in one kind of home and thin in another. Low-rise apartment and townhouse communities along the fairway edges make up most of what trades, with a smaller number of detached houses on plots that are generous by coastal standards, and a long tail of 1970s and 1980s terraces that have never been touched. What is genuinely scarce is a renewed home with an open outlook over a fairway; plenty of homes have one or the other. Almost nothing here is new, so a buyer who wants a current specification is usually buying a renovation and paying for it twice — once to the seller, once to the builder.
The competition is narrow rather than fierce. Paula's read is that nearly everyone viewing here plays, that most are Northern European second-home buyers or semi-retired couples, and that they arrive already comparing this valley with the other courses in the municipality rather than with the beach towns below. That produces a patient, well-informed opposite number who rarely bids against the clock. It also means the pressure sits on sellers: when three similar houses in one community are available at once, the street sets the level. An offer here is argued from condition and frontage, not from urgency.
| The Los Olivos rebuild | Rebuilt across the 2000–2001 season by Cabell Robinson, a disciple of Robert Trent Jones Senior 2026-08-27 |
|---|---|
| The licence counter for this side of Mijas | Building and business licences are handled at the Tenencia de La Cala, Edificio Cala del Sol, Bulevar La Cala 45 2026-08-27 |
| Where the padrón is kept | Registration and tax collection are handled at the Tenencia de Las Lagunas, with the town hall itself in Mijas Pueblo 2026-08-27 |
| The club's playing day | The course runs 08.00 to 20.30, Monday to Sunday, with the clubhouse serving from 07.30 2026-08-27 |
| The judicial district | Mijas belongs to the Fuengirola judicial district, whose seat is Fuengirola 2026-08-27 |
How this runs, step by step
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Step 1
Choose the fairway before the floor plan
Specific to Mijas
Start with the fairway, not the floor plan. Ask which course a home fronts, and then ask what was done to that course and when: Los Olivos was rebuilt across the 2000 and 2001 seasons, and Los Lagos was refurbished afterwards. The answer places the house in a building generation, settles the outlook, and tells you which neighbours you will be compared with the day you sell.
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Step 2
Take the licence question to La Cala
Specific to Mijas
Mijas splits its counters. Building and business licences are handled at the Tenencia de La Cala, in the Edificio Cala del Sol on Bulevar La Cala 45. The padrón and the tax desk are at the Las Lagunas office. The town hall itself is up in Mijas Pueblo. Ask what your intended work actually needs before the reservation, and diarise the drive, because none of the three is a walk from here.
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Step 3
Read what the community has renewed
Ask for three years of accounts and the minutes that go with them, then read them for works rather than for the fee. A community that has re-waterproofed its terraces, renewed the pool plant or retrofitted a lift has spent the money already. One that has deferred all three is quoting you a low charge and a bill you cannot see yet. The difference between two neighbouring communities here is routinely a decade of maintenance.
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Step 4
Match the plan to the Catastro
Have the lawyer line up the referencia catastral, the registered description at the Registro and the plan of the house you actually walked, and confirm that all three describe the same building. Solarium rooms, glazed terraces and converted garages are common on this stock and were not always declared. Anything added without a licence is curable, but it is cheaper to find before the arras than to argue about at the notary.
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Step 5
Drive the week you would actually live
Specific to Mijas
The club's own sheet runs from 08.00 to 20.30 seven days a week, and the clubhouse serves from 07.30. Everything else is a drive: the supermarket, the health centre, the station and the beach are all down in Fuengirola, and there is no bus a household could rely on. Come in February rather than August, do the morning school run and the evening return, and count how many cars the week needs.
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Step 6
Arras, notary and registration
Once the file is clean, the reservation becomes an arras contract and then an escritura pública signed before a notary. Mijas belongs to the Fuengirola judicial district, so the court and notarial work for this valley sits in that town rather than in Marbella or the capital. After signature the deed is registered, and the IBI, the water account and the community charge move into your name.
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On top of the agreed price a resale here carries the Andalucían transfer tax, the notary, the registry and your lawyer, and Paula's lawyer confirms the current rates in writing before you commit. Then come the valley's own lines. The community budget is the real variable, because lawned gardens on this ground are irrigated and the water is metered. Golf is a third line altogether, agreed with the club rather than with the seller. And a household that arrives here running on one car generally ends up buying a second.
GUIDE An indication of where this area sits, not a valuation of any particular home. Ask Paula for a figure you can act on.
Questions about this in Mijas Golf
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Who signs off a terrace enclosure at Mijas Golf?
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The Ayuntamiento first, and your community of owners second — both have a say, and only one of them can fine you. Mijas handles building licences for this side of the municipality at the Tenencia de La Cala, in the Edificio Cala del Sol on Bulevar La Cala 45, while your community's statutes separately govern anything visible from outside. Ask both before the reservation. Work already done by a previous owner without either permission is the version of this problem that costs money at resale.
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How do I compare two homes on different fairways?
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By generation first, then by frontage. Los Olivos was rebuilt across the 2000 and 2001 seasons, and the housing that followed it is broadly younger than the terraces that went up beside Los Lagos in the late 1970s and 1980s. So establish which decade built each community, what it has renewed since, and only then argue about the view. Two houses with the same floor area and the same asking price can carry entirely different repair bills for the next ten years.
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Is an untouched 1980s townhouse worth taking on?
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Often, because that is what this valley has most of, and because access here is easy in a way it is not in a hill village: a lorry reaches the door and materials do not arrive by barrow. The risks are the ordinary ones — single glazing, a flat roof that has never been re-waterproofed, plumbing of the same age, and a spiral stair that cannot be widened. Price the work with a builder who has already done a house in that community before you agree a purchase price.
— NEXT STEP
Thinking about Mijas Golf? Ask Paula what is really moving there.
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. It usually saves a wasted trip.