First steps

Well, so far we have bought the land and found a local Spanish architect (Jose) - one thing of real note here, our architect is local so he speaks the local language (Valenciana) which is a real boon when dealing with officialdom!

Now that we own the land we want to proceed with our project so we asked our architect to check once more the local requirements and any possible problems, what he came back with was:

1. We didn't have sufficent land (we need 10,000 sq. metres and apparently we only have 9.933 square metres) (WHAT !!)
2. Electricity - what are we going to do for electricity. We had already purchased a solar system so we tick this box.
3. Water - we have water actions (for irrigation) and will use a multi-stage filter and/or a local water deposit topped up from a local font. This should also tick the box
4. Anyone living within 300 metres could object but luckily there are no houses within that radius

Insufficient land - this is ridiculous. We have four plots of land which have been legally formed into one (by Agrupacion) that total nearly 13.000 square metres. We rapidly arrange a meeting between ourselves, Jose and the Ayuntamiento. Two sleepless nights later, we have our meeting. The ayuntamiento's figures are based on the Catastro (the land taxation database) and there is a real discrepancy, however one look at our escrituras (deeds) and the Ayuntamiento's architect shrugs his shoulders and states that the escrituras are the legal documents so they have precedence .. in 30 seconds we have gone from a shortfall of 77 sq. metres to an excess of nearly 3.000 !

Feeling elated, we adjourn to a local bar to celebrate with a coffee (well it was only 11.00am) and an initial discussion about house design. We now have a couple of weeks while Jose finishes a previous project before getting down to the serious business of applying for building permission .. me thinks this could be a long process!