It is true as this Guardian article attests that the property market in Spain is beset by some of the problems that are endemic on the fringes of the Med. Whilst not quite the lawless frontier that is sometimes portrayed, local bureaucracies can and do have a massive influence in the planning process for new developments.
Naturally, this does lead to corruption. The prestige and money represented by something like a major new resort development attracts sticky-fingered politicos, lawyers and developers like a honey pot attracts bees. This sometimes becomes an unholy alliance with nods and winks being used to bypass proper procedure.
In the long term, this represents no gain for anybody except the lawyers. The politicians are inevitably undone if they overtly or covertly conspire to bend regulations in favour of developers. The developers themselves can get a bad name from their association with such cases. The local residents lose out – because if rules are bent it is normally to their detriment. Finally – and most frequently left unremarked upon – the people who have invested in the development lose out. The goodwill of the local population is absolutely essential for life to be bearable either for holidaymakers or people looking to live out there permanently. Looking like you’ve just beamed in from Croydon with a perma-tan and trophy wife to live in splendour on some poor guy’s olive grove that was bulldozed without permission just isn’t a recipe for successful integration.
If this kind of thing is going on, it is short-termism of the worst kind – and the well documented rough-ride of the Spanish property market as a whole will not be helped.
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