Sotogrande Marina · New build & off-plan

There is no third phase at the Sotogrande marina

The Sotogrande marina was built in 1987 and extended once in the late 1990s, and no third phase is planned. Every scheme the estate's developer currently markets sits inland at La Reserva. So off-plan here means either a refurbishment under municipal licence or a purchase somewhere else on the estate.

Municipality
San Roque
Province
Cádiz
Part of
Sotogrande

This is the page most agencies would not write, because the truthful answer removes the product. The quays are complete. The five original blocks over the street-level shops date from the port's inauguration; the ribera apartments facing open water were the single extension, at the end of the 1990s. North of the port is the Torreguadiaro lagoon and the protected mouth of the Guadiaro, and the water side is finished. A buyer searching for a new-build apartment on the Sotogrande marina is searching for something that does not exist, and the useful service is to say so before a deposit moves rather than after.

What does exist is two different routes. The first is refurbishment: buying an original block flat and rebuilding it internally, which needs a licence from the Ayuntamiento de San Roque and, in almost every case, the community's consent for anything touching a common element or the quayside façade. The second is to accept the marina is not where the new stock is and look at the developer's actual programme — The Seven, The Fifteen, The Collection and Village Verde, all in La Reserva on the hillside. That is a different address, a different price posture and a different daily life, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

What is under construction here — and what is not

The verifiable position, as at 26 August 2026, is that the estate's own developer markets four schemes — The Seven, The Fifteen, The Collection and Village Verde — and all four are inside La Reserva de Sotogrande, on the hillside above the coast road. None of them is on the water. The marina's own building history is equally clear: inaugurated in 1987, extended once in the late 1990s, and closed on its northern side by the Torreguadiaro lagoon and the protected Guadiaro estuary.

That has two consequences a buyer should weigh. The first is that anyone who wants a genuinely new home with Sotogrande on the deed is choosing La Reserva, and should read that as a different purchase rather than a substitute — hillside instead of harbour, club facilities instead of a walkable street, and a price posture at the top of the corridor rather than in its middle. The second is that the marina's existing stock has no new competition coming, which is a real argument for buying and modernising an original block flat instead. Paula's honest advice is that the second route suits more buyers than the marketing suggests, provided the licence and the community consent are secured before the works contract is signed.

Key facts about Sotogrande Marina
Where the estate's new schemes actually are The Seven, The Fifteen, The Collection and Village Verde are all marketed within La Reserva de Sotogrande, none at the marina 2026-08-26
Marina build history The port opened in 1987; its construction affected the dune systems of Torreguadiaro beach, the ground immediately to its north 2026-08-26
Licensing authority for works here The Ayuntamiento de San Roque, whose Valle del Guadiaro district office is in Guadiaro rather than in San Roque town 2026-08-26

How this runs, step by step

  1. Step 1

    Confirm what is genuinely new

    Specific to San Roque

    Ask any agent offering a new marina apartment which building it sits in and what year it was licensed. On these quays the honest answers are 1987 or the late 1990s. A refurbished flat is a refurbished flat, however complete the rebuild, and it carries none of the legal protections that attach to a genuine off-plan purchase from a promoter.

  2. Step 2

    Licence the refurbishment properly

    Specific to San Roque

    A full internal rebuild of a quayside flat needs a works licence from the Ayuntamiento de San Roque before anything is opened up. Work started without one is the most common reason a marina refurbishment stops mid-project, and an unlicensed alteration surfaces years later at the moment you try to sell, when the buyer's lawyer compares the Catastro record to what is actually there.

  3. Step 3

    Get the community's agreement first

    Specific to San Roque

    Anything that touches a façade facing the water, a terrace enclosure, a service riser or the roof is a common element, and the comunidad de propietarios decides it, not you. Getting that agreement minuted before the works contract is signed is the difference between a four-month project and a two-year dispute with the neighbours you will then live beside.

  4. Step 4

    If you go off-plan, check the guarantee

    For a genuine off-plan purchase elsewhere on the estate, every staged payment must be covered by a bank guarantee or insurance policy under the regime that Ley 20/2015 carried forward from Ley 38/1999, held in a segregated account. No guarantee document, no payment. This is the single protection that separates an off-plan contract from an unsecured loan to a developer.

  5. Step 5

    Wait for the LPO before completing

    The licencia de primera ocupación is the municipality's confirmation that what was built matches what was licensed, and it gates the utility connections. Completing before it is issued means owning a home you may not be able to connect or insure. Where the property sits in San Roque, that certificate comes from the same Ayuntamiento that issued the works licence.

An off-plan purchase is paid in stages, and the stages are the point: a reserve, a contract payment, instalments against construction milestones, and the balance at the escritura. Each instalment before completion must be guaranteed and held apart from the developer's working capital. A refurbishment on these quays is the opposite shape — the cost lands early and in one contract, and there is no guarantee regime protecting it, so the builder is chosen on references rather than on price. Paula will not put a number on either until the licence position is confirmed.

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 Sotogrande Marina

Are any apartments at the Sotogrande marina sold off-plan?

Not as at 26 August 2026. The quays were completed in two phases — the original blocks with the port in 1987 and the ribera apartments at the end of the 1990s — and the developer's current programme is entirely inland. Anything advertised here as new is a refurbished existing flat. That is not a criticism of refurbished flats, several of which are excellent, but it changes the legal position completely: no staged payments, no bank guarantee, and no licencia de primera ocupación to wait for.

Can I enclose my quayside terrace during a refurbishment?

Only with both the community's agreement and a municipal licence, and the order matters. A terrace facing the water forms part of the building's exterior appearance, which is a common element under Spanish horizontal property law, so the comunidad decides whether the alteration is permitted at all. Once that is minuted, the Ayuntamiento de San Roque licenses the work itself. Enclosures done the other way round are the ones that reappear as a problem at the nota simple stage years later.

Is La Reserva a fair substitute if I wanted the marina?

It is an alternative, not a substitute, and the difference is worth being blunt about. The marina is the one place on the estate where daily life happens on foot: bread, a coffee, a boat, all without a car. La Reserva sits on the hillside with its own club, its lagoon beach and its racquet centre, and everything outside the gate is a drive. It also sits at the top of the corridor's price ladder rather than in the middle. Choose it because you want that life, not because the marina had nothing new.

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