YOUR VIEWS

I really do find the local authority's Demolition Orders flying around in Andratx an absolute absurdity.
A good many completely innocent property owners are seriously affected - having to vacate homes they purchased in good faith and watch them be demolished.

I gather some are being demolished because of lack of planning permission in a designated “Rural” area, and others because the planning permission was gained through fraud.

Lack of planning consent
In the case of simple lack of planning consent - standard practice has a Notary signing off the paperwork and the developer duly paid.
Surely the Owners have recourse through the Notary?
Worse, a vindictive council is insisting on demolition at the same time as another of their offices is planning to move the Urban/Rural boundaries that would make any future building on the same spot perfectly legal.

What they are really saying is: Pull it down this month (because we say so!) and we will let you rebuild it next month! How spiteful and absurd! The present Owners are not to blame - they were defrauded and the legal measures in place to protect against such fraud failed them miserably.
I really do suggest that, in these extraordinary circumstances, the Council adopt a compassionate approach and join the dots now to include the properties concerned into the Urban area.

Where Planning Consents were gained by bribery between the developer and a planning officer, it is my view that these property owners were not in any way at fault - they HAD a planning consent and the Notary confirmed that.

It was the Council that was defrauded by their own officer issuing fraudulent approvals.
Yes, sheer bloody-mindedness dictates pull them down - cos they're not legal - but who really is to blame?
Chris James
Calvia

Dear Sir, Being a German and a regular reader of your paper I was pretty surprised by the “German Fury at Majorca”.
You cite two”leading German publications”, i.e. Bild and Bunte.
I wonder what your definition might be - would you call the Sun a leading British paper?
Because that's exactly what Bild is, a German equivalent of the Sun with little credibility even among their own readers, who are constantly joking about its sensationalism ( “one bullet shot, 9 people killed”).

As for Bunte, it is nick-named as “queen of the yellow press”, a weekly magazine which is also not taken seriously by most people.
Kai Becker
Cas Catala