Ley de Costas: buying property near the sea in Spain

Buying property under the Ley de Costas: the public domain, the protection zones, the 2025 Valencian coastal law and how to check a plot before you buy.

Last checked 17 October 2026

What you will learn

Where the public domain and the protection zones begin
What the 2025 Valencian coastal law added, and what is suspended
How to check a coastal plot before you sign

Every question about buying property under the Ley de Costas starts with two layers of law that sit above any town plan near the sea in Spain: the State's coastal law, Ley 22/1988 de Costas, and, on this coast, the Valencian coastal law of 2025. Together they decide what belongs to the public, what may be built, and what you may do to a house that already stands there. The answer is always plot by plot, so read what follows as a map of the questions to ask, not as an answer for a particular house.

Ley de Costas: the public domain and the line

The shore itself, including beaches and the land the sea reaches, is maritime-terrestrial public domain (dominio público marítimo-terrestre) and belongs to the State. Its inner limit is fixed by a boundary procedure, the deslinde, approved by the State. Once approved, the deslinde declares the State's ownership, and entries in the Property Registry cannot prevail against it. A title deed is therefore not proof that land close to the shore is private.

Deslindes are not fixed for ever. The State revises them when the shape of the public domain changes, and the start of a deslinde procedure is noted in the margin of the affected properties at the Property Registry, one more reason to read the registry extract (nota simple) with care. If a revision brings private land into the public domain, the owner does not keep ownership but receives a 75-year concession, without a fee, that respects the existing uses.

Protection zones and what they allow

The protection zone. A servitude of protection covers 100 metres inland from the inner limit of the shore. On land that was already classified as urban when the law came into force in July 1988, the width is 20 metres instead. In this zone new buildings for living in are prohibited, along with other uses the law lists.

The transit zone. The first 6 metres inland must be kept open for people walking along the coast and for rescue and surveillance vehicles.

The zone of influence. Planning on a strip of at least 500 metres from the shore must protect the coast, for example by avoiding walls of buildings and accumulated volumes.

Houses that already exist. For legal buildings in the protection zone that do not fit the current law, the law allows repair, improvement, consolidation and modernisation, provided the works do not increase volume, height or floor area, and where it applies they must also improve the energy rating. If the house is demolished, whatever replaces it must comply in full. This is why an extension, a larger terrace or an extra storey on a front line house is often not possible.

The Valencian coastal law of 2025

Ley 3/2025, de protección y ordenación de la costa valenciana, in force since 15 June 2025, adds a regional layer. It renamed the coastal green infrastructure plan, PATIVEL, as the Plan de Ordenación Costera, and ordered its revision within three months. Until that revision, the PATIVEL rules stay in force only where they do not contradict the new law, and the law's own rules on prohibited uses apply directly. In October 2026 the Generalitat approved the rules of the commission that prepares the new plan, and that decree still speaks of the plan that will replace PATIVEL. Check which text applies to your plot on the day you buy.

Three points in the law matter in a purchase. Works and uses in the protection zone need prior authorisation from the Generalitat. Coastal plans may mark areas where sales are subject to the Generalitat's rights of first refusal and repurchase (tanteo y retracto), and there the sale must be notified within 60 days of the deed. And coastal towns have three years from June 2025 to identify land within 200 metres of the shore that met the conditions of urban land in 1988, which can bear on whether the protection zone on a plot is 100 or 20 metres wide.

The constitutional challenge and what is suspended

The Spanish Government challenged parts of the law before the Constitutional Court (appeal 1550-2026), and the challenged provisions were suspended from February 2026 for the parties and April 2026 for everyone else. In Auto 49/2026 of 21 July 2026 the court kept the suspension of article 17 and the related final provision, the regime for clusters of traditional coastal buildings, insofar as they breach the State's coastal law, and lifted it for the rest. The inventory of degraded public domain land, a first step towards asking the State to release it, is no longer suspended. The judgment on the merits is still to come, so none of this is settled.

How to check a coastal plot before you buy

The deslinde line. The State publishes the approved lines in its public domain viewer and through the Cadastre, as the Ministry's page on deslinde lines explains. The data is for information only, and the State's coastal office can confirm it for a given plot.

The zones on the plot. Ask an architect or surveyor to draw the shore line, the 6, 20 or 100 metre zones and the 500 metre strip against the actual house, pool and garden, and to say which works would need authorisation from the State or the Generalitat.

Works done in the past. If the house sits in the protection zone and has a pool, terrace or extension, ask for the coastal authorisation that covered the work as well as the town licence. A licence alone may not be enough.

The planning and the papers. Check the town's classification of the land, the licences and occupation documents of the house, and whether any part of it sits in the public domain or the protection zone. Our guide to property due diligence in Spain lists the other checks.

Before you make an offer on a house close to the shore, have the deslinde line and the zones drawn on the plot, and ask an independent lawyer to read that drawing together with the deed and the licences. It tells you what you are really buying and what you will be allowed to change. For older houses with work already done, our guide to the ECUV certificate in Valencia explains the limits of legalisation. The sea view villas in Calpe show what is on the market now.

Homes for this guide

Calpe

Written by Nicolas Strebel.