Ten Years Too Long

Helen and Len Prior have now been without a house for ten years as theirs was demolished in a pointless exercise by the Junta de Andalucía on 8 January 2008. Since then, they have lived in their garage which had another licence and thus escaped the atrocity. The house was in a quiet area outside Vera (Almería). There are other – unscathed – houses nearby, and the zone is neither on the beach, nor in a flood plain, nor on the motorway, a river or in a national park.  As Almería Hoy reports, the Priors were advised by their lawyer to sue the local town hall and, after a lengthy period, the Priors have decided reluctantly to accept a compensation of a third of the amount they had claimed (following a successful appeal from the ayuntamiento). Bad for the Priors, of course, but as the article says – terrible for Spain’s reputation abroad.   

In a statement to Business over Tapas, Mrs Prior says ‘Len and I will not be celebrating our ten years of purgatory.  We are hoping to be paid by the end of February/March and just turn our backs on it all.  It is only one third of the money we requested and thought we were entitled to, but to be honest, we thought the powers that be were hoping for us to die without being paid at all. So living this long has to be a result...’.