For the last few years there has been great uncertainty as to the legitimacy of many of the villas, apartments and townhouses built in Marbella in the previous years. This was due to the fact that the previous Town Hall granted licenses which were contrary to the previous Marbella planing. At the time a new planning document was drown up but the regional government did not approve it. Nevertheless, the Town Hall went ahead giving licenses mainly for apartments within the Marbella municipality. The boiling point was when the central government dismissed all the councilors of the Marbella Town Hall due to a court investigation which found that there had been corruption with the granting of the "illegal" licenses. Then for a period of a year many Marbella apartments were difficult to sell as the licenses were considered abnormal. As a result banks would not grant mortgages on these properties and many Marbella Real Estate Agents would not offer them either.



Now with the approval of the new master plan 95% of these properties shall be legalized thanks to a consensus amongst the political parties. They understand that the priority is to reactivate the Marbella Real Estate Market and to give legal security to buyers and property owners. This will no doubt be good news for the Marbella property scene.

With this, the newly elected Mayoress of the centre-right Partido Popular has kept one of her election campaign promises which were to provide the Marbella Property Market with a mechanism which would give legal security to buyers, investors and developers in Marbella Real Estate.

The planning shall be open to public information during August and September allowing allegations from the public. These shall then be studied and a final document is hoped to be approved by the beginning of 2008.

The conclusion is that Marbella Real Estate Agents, and in general investors, buyers and sellers in the Marbella Property Market, can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Other actions which the Town Hall has put in place are cleaning, security and public works.

There is a general cleaning campaign taking place as it is clear that this is something that tourists and residents appreciate.

As far as security is concerned, there is a larger police force as many have graduated from the Marbella Police Academy. There are more patrols and in general there is a commitment to bring security to a high level within Marbella town and all Marbella urbanisations including Puerto Banus.

In relation to public works, Marbella beaches are being cleaned and new sand is being placed. A new bridge shall be made giving better communication between Nueva Andalucia and San Pedro. New pavements are being placed, new asfalt on roads, monuments being cleaned and the Marbella sea promenade is being improved. One of the major works which has started is the tunnel for the main road when it passes San Pedro. Once this is finished, it shall allow a better flow of traffic along the Costa del Sol.

These few things have started only when the new Town Hall has been in power slightly over a month. Many other things are planned so that Marbella will be considered the prime luxury residential town in Europe. This can be achieved easily as Marbella still has the best climate in Europe and has a fantastic infrastructure in place including international restaurants, luxury hotels, luxurious boutiques, the best golf courses in Europe, yacht harbours, and not to forget important things such as first class international schools and hospitals.