The land registry billed him 26 years for a building that isn't there

REGIONAL LAND REGISTRY OFFICE — File 2024/06611

Applicant: Baldomero Ruano Cepeda, retired market gardener, 71. Subject: correction of discrepancies on plot 33-B, block 12.

FACTS. In the 1998 aerial-photography review, a roofed structure of 6 m², with no door and no registered access, was added to that plot. The applicant has paid tax on it for twenty-six years, at 8.40 euros a year, and requests its removal on the grounds that he has never seen it.

INSPECTION. The case officer, Encarna Pizarro, head of the Inspection Unit, visited the plot on 12 May with the 1998 orthophoto map and recorded her findings: at the coordinates of the structure there stands a thirty-one-year-old walnut tree. What the survey flight photographed at eleven in the morning, roofed and six square metres in size, was its shadow.

GROUNDS. Removal is warranted. The applicable article requires, in order to remove a property from the register, a final demolition certificate signed by a qualified technician.

DECISION. First: removal effective 12 May 2024. Second: refund of the non-time-barred years, 33.60 euros. Third: to add to the file the certificate supplied by the applicant, in which Fidel Ibarrola, building surveyor, states under his signature and registration number that the shadow has been demolished.