Beyond price escalation, the pressure of the vacation rental or the decoupling Between the speed at which homes are created and new buildings built, in Madrid the real estate market faces a tricky challenge: irregular developments. The latest data of the Community of Madrid reveal that in the region there are dozens of settlements of illegal origin that bring together thousands of homes that start from an irregular situation.
all one hot potato for administration.
What has happened? The data has revealed it The Newspaper. The Community of Madrid has registered almost 200 developments built without the necessary permits, settlements of illegal origin that add up to thousands of homes.
The calculation is based on an update of the inventory from the 1980s, when 136 irregular settlements were identified. The figure has changed since then for two reasons. The first, because there were nuclei that have managed to regularize themselves. The second, because the technicians have added to the list others that (for one reason or another) did not appear in the catalog that accompanied the 1985 regulations.
What do the figures say? If you walk around Madrid you can find dozens of housing units built without respecting the regulations. Some very populous. Specifically, The Newspaper talks about 184 urbanizations or settlements of illegal origin and some 10,500 homes.
The figure is partly explained because the 1980s census incorporated almost a hundred new consolidated residential areas. The Ministry of the Environment clarifies that in most cases they are the result of “urbanization processes outside the law” and “lacking planning”, which explains why they often do not offer “minimum conditions for urbanization.”
Are all cases the same? Not at all. Not all urbanizations identified by the Community of Madrid are the same nor do they have the same dimensions. Particularly noteworthy is the settlement of La Vega del Tajuñawhich brings together a large part of the residences in an irregular situation detected by regional technicians. Specifically, there are 5,513 distributed over more than 2,700 hectares. With those dimensions it would be the largest settlement of its kind in the community, although not the only one where hundreds of people live.
In Camino Viejo de Madrid and Vega Baja del Guadarrama there are also more than 1,400 buildings and there are others, such as El Rondelo, Pico Valsarón or Dehesa Nueva, with hundreds of homes. The Community has also noted constructions located in locations very close to the capital, such as Improved Field.
How is that possible? The circumstances and context are not always the same, but a few days ago EPE visited a nucleus of Mejorada del Campo that helps to understand how settlements like this can be formed in the heart of Madrid.
Specifically, the newspaper visited a nucleus that began to form in the 1980s, driven by developers who parceled out rural land and sold the land at affordable prices, offering it as an ideal space for “urban gardens” with access to water. Time, use and the increasing pressure that affect housing prices in Madrid did the rest. What were initially huts designed for tools gave way to more ambitious installations.
Is it something new? Not at all. And not only because the history of these settlements can go back a long time. At the end of 2025, the Community of Madrid has already issued a statement in which he recalled that in just four years he had inspected 1,906 “irregular constructions” on protected land. To be precise, the regional government spoke of 5,334.3 hectares “affected by this type of settlements”, also identified in 56 municipalities.
“Of them, about 80% are concentrated in the plains of the main Madrid rivers, the majority in the areas of the Tajuña River (2,712.5 hectares), followed by the Jarama (1,019.5), Guadarrama (363.2) and Tajo (150.2)”, explains the Madrid Executive, which warns of the “risk” it represents “both for people and the environment.” Hence, this type of construction appears among the objectives of the Urban Inspection and Discipline Plan.
Does it only happen in Madrid? No. Settlements of this type are also common in other parts of Spain, such as Catalonia. “There are many urbanizations that were built in the 60s, 70s and early 80s of the 20th century, which were marketed without the necessary planning, urban management or basic public services,” recognize from the Catalan Generalitat.
“Of the 1,433 identified in the 2015 catalogue, there are 730 with urban deficits. Many are concentrated in small municipalities and the tendency to convert housing estates into primary residences aggravates their situation,” acknowledges the regional government. The topic is complex because, as remember EPE When talking about the Madrid case, the legal framework varies over time: if a home built on non-developable land remains long enough outside the ‘radar’ of the authorities, the crime expires and can no longer be demolished.
Images | Community of Madrid
Via | The Newspaper
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