The Lanzarote Water Consortium has been ordered to abandon a private property that it occupied in Órzola with a water tank and to return possession of the land to the legitimate owners, who will also become owners of the constructions that the Consortium has been building on their land. The sentence, issued on March 20 by the Court of First Instance Number 5 of Arrecife, also imposes on the institution the payment of the costs generated by this lawsuit, which began with a lawsuit filed in September 2015.
Contrary to what the Consortium maintained, the sentence considers it proven that the family, to which the Ciudadanos councilor Benjamín Perdomo belongs, had been warning of the occupation of the land for years. Furthermore, it concludes that the institution acted in "bad faith", since it continued to carry out works and even extensions despite these warnings. The latest works began just over four years ago, already by Canal Gestión, and were also carried out without a license, which even led to a file from the Agency for the Protection of the Urban and Natural Environment (Apmun), which ordered the work to be stopped.
The file was also addressed against the family that owns the land, which in its lawsuit denounced that it had "had to endure" the opening of that urban disciplinary file for the actions carried out without permission. "We cannot understand that there has been good faith on the part of the defendant," the sentence states, which concludes that the Consortium "wanted to have the service available by placing it on someone else's property without paying for it, despite the continuous requests from the affected family."
An alleged transfer for which there is no evidence
In its response to the lawsuit, the Consortium alleged that the occupation of these lands occurred more than 30 years ago based on a transfer made by the Haría City Council, which was not actually the owner of the land. In this regard, what they maintained is that the then owner, grandfather of the plaintiffs who initiated the lawsuit, had reached "some kind of agreement" with the City Council to be able to carry out that transfer.
"It is insisted that the land was transferred by the grandfather, after an agreement with the City Council, although the aforementioned agreement has not been provided," the sentence states, which emphasizes that not even the actions that appear in the case allow considering that this was the will of the owner, now deceased, but just the "opposite". To argue this, it points out that the Consortium could only provide the minutes of a plenary session of Haría from 1982, in which the land was made available to them. However, the manager of the Water Council declared in the trial that he did not know "how the land was given to the City Council", and the institution did not provide any document proving the existence of that alleged agreement with the owner either.
For their part, the grandchildren of the owner and current owners of the land declared that their grandfather did not reach any agreement and that he resided in Arrecife, so when he became aware of the works they were already finished. Then they claim that he went to the City Council, where they told him about the need to build that tank and asked him for time, promising that it would be resolved. "The above agrees with what is stated in the minutes of the Haría City Council dated September 27, 1990, where the problem of the land is highlighted and a non-payment to Benjamín Barreto for the occupation carried out is reflected," the sentence adds.
The owner's disagreement, accredited since 1989
Furthermore, while the Consortium insists on the existence of a transfer agreement that it has not been able to accredit, the plaintiffs provided several writings, including one sent in 1989 by their grandfather to the City Council. In it, he stated that his land had been occupied not only with the water tank, but also "with pipes and other accessories", and that the construction had been carried out without any "authorization" on his part and without him having been "notified".
Afterwards, far from abandoning the land, expropriating it or compensating the owner, the Consortium continued to use these facilities and carry out new expansion works, despite other writings that the owner's heirs continued to address. And these works extended until 2014, already with the current government group and with Canal Gestión in charge of the works.
For this reason, the magistrate considers it proven that the institution has acted in "bad faith" and condemns it to hand over possession of both the land and "the constructions built on it", stating that the deadline for the "eviction" will be set in the execution of the sentence, against which an appeal is still possible.