February 2014

Hello again. Save Our Homes Axarquia is entering it’s seventh year of existence in 2014. Each year in January we hold our AGM and each year the membership grows as more people are caught in net of house illegality. This January was no exception as the owners of the houses in Alcaucin that were anonymously denounced joined SOHA.ES en masse. As you may remember from last month the Junta de Andalucia is applying pressure on the town council to revoke the licences on what were seemingly completely legal houses.

At every AGM we see face to face the anger and frustration felt by so many obviously innocent people. Everybody demands justice, everybody wants to see the guilty pay, everybody wants the Junta to see sense and do the right thing. We at SOHA.ES have tried different approaches, demonstrations in the street, standing for election, dialogue with ministers but with very little concrete result. One of the remaining options is legal action both here and in the European Courts of Human Rights. Therefore, the theme of this year’s AGM was legal action.

At the AGM I received a very comprehensive report by C&D Solicitors in Torrox prepared especially for members of SOHA.ES on how to fight your case. The report makes it very clear if you were not the person with the name on the licence you cannot claim from the town hall – you must claim from the promoter. Guess where that will get you? In most cases nowhere!

So what DO you do? We were very lucky to have at our AGM someone with experience of fighting cases at the highest level – Gerardo Vazquez. Gerardo is the lawyer for AUAN fighting a case in the European Court of Human Rights against the Junta de Andalucia. He made it very clear that the route to our salvation is by winning cases in the ECHR. Each case we win (and we will win) builds extreme pressure on the Junta to change the law.

However, he also made it abundantly clear that each case is likely to cost tens of thousands of Euros!!! So our mission now is to raise funds. So if there is a Richard Branson or a Warren Buffet out there looking for a good cause to support log on to SOHA.ES.es and help us fight for our rights.