Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 12:39pm
Hi Enncey, We bought a dilapidated cortijo and have spent the last 3 years having fun refurbishing it. The only advice I would give is if you buy a ruin and by that I mean, no roof, walls falling down, then the rule is dont knock the whole thing down, leave at least one original wall standing, because we were told by our Spanish neighbour that if you knock the whole lot down you will have to get Planning permission to rebuild it, and you will only be allowed to rebuild in the original footprint. Whereas if you leave one wall standing, even if only half of it is left then you wont need planning permission, just a small works permit and life is a lot easier. Not so much red tape. Its why you see so many ruins about, the Spanish people that own them, dont raise them to the ground incase future generations want to build.
I have done this in Portugal and Spain, and enjoyed every minute, but then again I am a bit wacky.