Sterling effort Greg  and thanks for all the updates

Unfortunately there has been no progress with the cedula situation although there are rumours that pressure is building and that the ex-mayor of El Perello is taking some sort of legal action against habitatge in Tortosa who are causing this problem.

In the meantime the name and email address for the person responsible for this farce is below. Feel free to drop him a line - although he'll probably just ignore your email or quote the law back at you, it'll be worth filling up his inbox with complaints.  It may also be worth cc the other email which is the Barcelona office.

Sr Agustí Bel Beltran
email: a.bel@gencat.cat
cc: HABITATGE.DMAH@gencat.cat

Hi all
What about selling the land and giving the house away free ?
That way you could go ahead with a sale...
I think with the Spanish rules changing and persecuting the ex-pats every 10 mins, finding a buyer will be by fare the biggest problem.
It seems that never a week go's by without the tv showing some one else's home going under the bulldozer somewhere in Spain ? which I don't think is good for house sale's.
Most people would not consider putting money into anything that looks even a bit dodge..remember the Northern Rock fiasco ? and look what happened there.
No I don't think house  sale's with or without a "Cedula" are going to pick up any time soon......sure hope I'm wrong.

I should have looked before asking. His position is shown here    http://mediambient.gencat.net/Images/43_83228.pdf ... see page 6.   So he has a boss !

Just to let anyone who hasn't seen the post about the British Consulate visiting El Perelló on May 25:

http://www.tortosaforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273573997

The subject is pensions but the more people there bringing up the cedula situation the better.

I recently wrote to Nick Clegg about the cedula issue following a meeting he had with Zapatero last week. I copied the email to the Vice Consul, Mark Smithson, and received the reply below:

"Thank you very much for your email.

Although your email is not addressed to me I thought I should make you aware of the steps we have taken since we last spoke on the phone.

On May 17, Andrew Gwatkin, Consul General, Manuel Vallve and myself met with Mr Joan-Vianney M. Arbeola i Rigau, Generalitat de Catalunya’s Head of the department for housing and the environment for the province of Tarragona. In that meeting we raised our concerns for the impact law 18/2007 (DOGC 5044) is having on British Nationals who in the absence of a “cedula de habitabilidad” are now unable to sell their properties. Mr Arbeola promised to inform the Catalan minister for Housing and environment of the situation. Since then, we have been in contact with the Generalitat de Catalunya and we are in the process of arranging a meeting with the Mr Baltassar, Catalan minister for housing and the environment. When this meeting takes place we will ask the minister for what advice should be given to British nationals who are no longer able to sell their properties. I will be in contact with you once the meeting has taken place to update you on the latest advice from the Generalitat. In the meantime, we would advice you to seek legal advice."

Whether anything more will be done remains to be seen but it's encouraging the Consul General is now involved and speaking to the people who actually have the power to sort this mess out. I also replied saying that the meeting between Carme Trilla and the API at the beginning of June had solved nothing for the vast majority of properties.

ps - Great post by Nigel on The Telegraph website (7th comment down) for anyone who hasn't seen it.  Makes worrying reading for Spain but they still carry on in glorious denial. Two words..deckchairs, Titanic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7831117/Spain-p...

Well done again Greg, nice to know someone is doing something. keep up the good work.

Bob