Nueva Andalucía · Legal & mortgage support
Legal ground in Nueva Andalucía, where deeds stop a storey short
Nueva Andalucía is a Marbella district with its own Tenencia de Alcaldía in the La Campana barriada, and a valley of 1980s villas that have grown since they were licensed. The legal work here is rarely the contract. It is reconciling what stands on the plot with what the deed records.
- Municipality
- Marbella
- Province
- Málaga
- Part of
- Marbella
The valley's stock was licensed in one era and lived in through several. A villa built around Las Brisas or Aloha in the 1980s has often acquired a guest annexe, an enclosed loggia, a converted basement or a pool house, and not all of it reached the deed. That gap is the Nueva Andalucía legal question, and it is not academic: it decides what a lender will lend against, what a buyer inherits, and whether the seller can hand over clean title at all. Paula's first instruction on a valley villa is always the same — measure the house against its own paperwork before anyone talks about price.
The mortgage half follows from the same fact. A Spanish lender's valuation is a regulated tasación under Orden ECO/805/2003, and a valuer works from the registered and cadastral description of the property, not from the floor area a buyer walks through. An undeclared storey is therefore invisible to the loan: the bank lends against the smaller, legal house, and the difference lands on the buyer's own funds. In a district where a large share of the villa stock predates 1990, that arithmetic is worth doing before the arras rather than three weeks after it, when the reservation is already paid and the calendar has stopped being flexible.
Three layers over a valley plot, and where each is decided
The split is worth learning once. Contract law, the escritura, the Registro de la Propiedad and the mortgage regime are national — identical in this valley and in León. The transfer taxes are Andalusian: a resale attracts the region's transfer tax, a new build IVA plus the stamp duty AJD, and the rates are set by the regional parliament, which is why a figure quoted in an old article is worth nothing to you. Your lawyer confirms the current position in writing before you commit.
The municipal layer is the Ayuntamiento de Marbella, and it is the one that decides timetables. It licenses works, issues the licencia de primera ocupación, bills the IBI and settles the plusvalía municipal, and Nueva Andalucía is administered as one of the town's districts with its own Tenencia de Alcaldía in La Campana. Sitting between the Andalusian and the municipal layer is the instrument this valley meets more often than most: article 173 of Ley 7/2021 and the asimilado a fuera de ordenación status, which tolerates an old irregular building and allows conservation work on it, but does not licence it and does not let you extend it further.
| District municipal office | Nueva Andalucía is administered as a Marbella district with its own Tenencia de Alcaldía in the La Campana barriada, at Miguel de Cervantes 15, 29660. 2026-08-27 |
|---|---|
| Time-barred irregular buildings | Article 173 of Ley 7/2021 creates the situación de asimilado a fuera de ordenación for buildings against which planning enforcement is time-barred, permitting conservation and impact-reducing works rather than extension. 2026-08-27 |
| Mortgage valuation rules | Orden ECO/805/2003, de 27 de marzo, sets the rules for valuing real estate for certain financial purposes, mortgage lending among them. 2026-08-27 |
| Energy performance certificate | Real Decreto 390/2021 sets the basic procedure for the energy performance certificate of buildings, which forms part of the file on a sale or a let. 2026-08-27 |
How this runs, step by step
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Step 1
NIE, funds and the timetable
Start the NIE application and the transfer route before you find the house, not after. A foreign buyer needs the number to sign, and a Spanish account and a proof-of-funds trail to move money without a bank freezing it mid-purchase. Both take longer in August than the seller's agent will tell you, and neither depends on which house you choose.
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Step 2
Instruct your own lawyer
Appoint a lawyer who acts for you alone and is not introduced by the selling side. Their first job is the nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad, the cadastral record and the community's certificate of debt. Those three documents, read together, answer most of what a buyer worries about, and they cost very little beside the cost of not reading them.
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Step 3
Measure the villa against its deed
Specific to Marbella
On a valley villa, put the registered description, the cadastral plan and the actual building side by side. Added floors, enclosed terraces and converted basements are common here and are frequently undeclared. Where the works are old enough that enforcement is time-barred, article 173 of Ley 7/2021 offers the asimilado a fuera de ordenación route, which recognises the building without turning it into a licensed one.
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Step 4
Take the planning question to Marbella
Specific to Marbella
Licences, the licencia de primera ocupación, the annual IBI and the plusvalía municipal on a sale all belong to the Ayuntamiento de Marbella, and the district keeps its own Tenencia de Alcaldía in the La Campana barriada. Ask what the parcel permits rather than assuming the neighbour's extension set a precedent — in this valley it usually did not.
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Step 5
Open the mortgage file early
Specific to Marbella
If you are borrowing, give the lender the registry and cadastral papers at the start. The valuer's report is a tasación under Orden ECO/805/2003 and will describe the legal house, so any undeclared floor reduces the amount advanced. Knowing that in week one lets you set the deposit correctly, or decide to regularise before completion rather than after.
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Step 6
Arras, notary and afterwards
Sign the arras with the conditions you actually need written in — mortgage approval, a clean community certificate, the resolution of anything the searches found. At the notary the escritura is signed and the price paid; afterwards the deed is presented at the Registro, the energy certificate required by Real Decreto 390/2021 forms part of the file, and the utilities and IBI are moved into your name.
Some of what you pay is fixed by statute and some of it is argued. Fixed: the Andalusian transfer tax on a resale, IVA with AJD on a new build, the notary's tariff, the Registro's fee, the energy certificate, and the plusvalía municipal on the seller's side. Negotiable: your own lawyer, the survey, the agency arrangement, and — the live one in this valley — who carries the cost of regularising a floor or an annexe that never reached the deed. On a 1980s villa it can outweigh every fixed cost above it, and it is settled before the arras or not at all.
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 Nueva Andalucía
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Can I get a mortgage on a villa with an undeclared floor?
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Usually yes, but on the smaller house. The valuer works to Orden ECO/805/2003 and describes what is registered and cadastrally recorded, so the extra floor is simply not in the report. The lender then advances against that figure, and the shortfall comes out of your own funds. There are two ways forward: regularise before completion, which takes time and a technician, or price the purchase knowing the loan will be smaller than the house suggests. Paula's advice is to decide which of the two you are doing before you sign anything.
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What does asimilado a fuera de ordenación actually give me?
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Recognition, not a licence. Article 173 of Ley 7/2021 applies where planning enforcement against an irregular building is already time-barred. The declaration acknowledges the building and allows conservation and works that reduce its impact; it does not make it legal, and it does not open the door to a further extension. For a buyer that matters in two places: what a lender will accept as security, and what you may realistically do to the house afterwards. Your lawyer establishes which of the two situations a specific villa is in.
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Does the La Campana district office handle building licences?
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The Tenencia de Alcaldía in La Campana is the district's municipal office, and it is a useful counter for everyday municipal business. Licensing, the cadastral file, the IBI and the plusvalía municipal are functions of the Ayuntamiento de Marbella and are handled by its own departments, so a planning question is answered by the town hall rather than by the district desk. In practice your lawyer files and chases these, which is the point of instructing one: you should not be standing in a municipal queue in a language you are still learning.
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