We Bought an Abandoned Land in Spain with a Stone House

Reading time: 11 minutes

In June 2022 we put an offer on an abandoned land in Spain that has a stone house to be restored.

After negotiations, the offer was accepted and payment was made.

The documentation was prepared and in September 2022 the deed was ready.

A month later we traveled to Spain, got the deed from the notary and went to visit the Finca for the first time.

The process seems to be fast, but it is very slow.

It took more than 3 years of research with hundreds of articles read and hundreds of videos watched before we bought the land.

I had to make sure I knew what I was getting into.

Buying the abandoned land in Spain was just the first necessary step for us to be able to live off the grid in a self-sustainable way.

Abandoned Land in Spain

The land of the Finca is very peculiar. The uneven terrain with the slopes and mountains make it ratter beautiful.

The total surface of the Land is just over 11,000m2. It is divided into two slopes with stone wall terraces.

There are two mountains and each slope is the side of one of them. One mountain is to the south and the other mountain is to the north.

The stone terraces

The stone walls of the terraces are like steps on a gigantic staircase that starts at the top and goes down the mountains.

As each terrace sits at a different level and position, the views of the mountains differ depending on where you are. The views are spectacular.

On the terraces there are several species of trees. In the land ministry there are a total of 103 trees registered on the Finca, of which 63 are olive trees.

The lower terrace is where the two mountains meet. There is an ancient stone well there.

There is no potable water on the Finca. In the future I will restore the stone well and the rainwater collection cistern.

I also intend to build a rainwater collection system.

A forgotten Past

The locals told me that the stone well may have been built in Roman period. But I believe it is much older, going back to Neolithic period.

Not far from the Finca, there is a Phoenician archaeological site, which dates back to Neolithic period around 700 BCE.

I’m going to investigate this archaeological site and see if it’s connected in any way to the period the stone well was built.

When we went to see the Finca in June 2022 the estate agency lady said that the previous owner bought the Finca around 60 years ago and since then it has been abandoned.

From the size of the bushes it was clear that the Finca had been abandoned for a long time, but how long it had been abandoned, we were not sure.

A hidden history

When we got the deed, the lad from the notary office showed a note at the bottom of the deed.

This note says that: “In 1862 the land was bought by an owner who lived in the house and who cultivated the land and the olive trees”.

This was the fourth and last owner to live on the Finca.

Who was the first owner to live on the Finca?
Why has no one else lived there since then?
When did the first owner buy the finca?
Who built the stone house and the well?
When were the house and the well built?

There are many questions that need answers. In the future I will go to the Land Registry in Tarragona to investigate and ask for a copy of all the Finca’s records.

For now the most important thing is that we bought and legalize the Finca`s documentation.

Before we can move and live off the grid in a self sustainable way there is a lot to be done. In order for we dont get overwhelmed, I created a project called “Project Eridu Life”.

Eridu Life Project

Before putting the offer on the Finca, I spent a lot of time researching and watching YouTube videos about living off the grid in a self sustainable way.

After collecting a lot of information and taking a lot of notes, I started to realize a common mistake among those I followed.

Everyone works hard on their projects, but inefficiently and disorganized.

They are doing the work without planning or prioritizing what needs to be done. They end up having to go back and redo projects that were done poorly, etc.

In order not to make the same mistakes, I made the decision to do things differently.

Planning

In another life I worked with human development, precisely with goal planning. The first thing I did when placed the offer on the Finca was create the “Eridu Life Project”.

I am old school. I like to write on paper, so I took a sheet of paper and wrote:

What do we need to live off the grid in a self-sustainable way in the Finca?

Land;
Documentation;
Shelter;
Water;
Electricity;
Sewer;
Toilet;
Food;

I thought about the basics of life and I wrote a list of the things needed for us to be able to live off the grid in a confortable and self sustainable way.

Before I continue…

Watch the video and see for yourself the amount of work that need to be done on the Finca before we`ll be able to move in and live off grid in Spain.

We know to little about the past and the history of the Finca. All we know is that the Finca has been abandoned for over 100 years and:

The bushes overgrown all over the terraces;
The stone house is in ruins with  walls collapsing;
The rainwater cistern has several cracks and leaks;
The access is restricted because of the bushes;
The water well is full of mud with walls collapsing;

Priorities

I merged the list of things needed for us to be able to live off the grid with the list of the things that need to be done on the Finca.

I transformed these lists into pillars or steps and organized them in order of priority and started what I do best which is planning.

The planning took a few months, but once it was done it was clear that we need to start from the Restoration of the old house.

Stone House Restoration

I always liked stone houses. Restoring houses like the one we have is complicated, and it requires specialized labor.

Ancient stone house are usually built on the ruins of an older dwelling. This is the case of our house. There are 3 different layers with different stone cuts.

In the collapsed part, the stone cuts is similar to the stones on the stone well. At the lower part, the stone cuts is similar to the terrace walls. At the higher part, the stone cuts is modern with plaster.

Who build the house?

Everything says that the house was rebuilt in 3 different eras.

There are several Phoenician archaeological sites in the region, with some dating back to the Neolithic period.

All the remaining stone structures from that time have stone cuts very similar to the part of the house that collapsed.

A stone house is built with natural materials.

The stones, clay and wood used in this type of construction are generally materials extracted from the Finca itself.

Restore vs Demolish

Since the house is in ruins, why not demolish everything and build a new brick house? Well, Catalonia legislation does not allow new dwellings to be built.

At least not in our region.

Catalonia legislation only allows you to restore a house that is standing with walls and roof, as is the case with our house.

The part that is still standing with walls and roof is just over 59m2. The part that collapsed is just over 49m2.

The restoration work must be done by an architect and a builder or stone mason.

Thanks to the wonderful neighbors we have David and Jane, I was able to get the contact of the architect and stone mason who restored their stone house in early 2022.

As I am writing this article is December 2022, and I had couple meetings with the architect and the stone mason.

The architect has already drawn the plans for the restoration of the stone house. I still haven’t closed a deal with the architect or the stone mason.

If all goes well to planning, the stone house restoration work will start in December 2023.

Living Off Grid in Spain

Living off the grid in Spain and in a self-sustainable way is the desire of many people. For us, this idea only came about 3 years ago, right at the end of 2019.

When I first started researching off-grid living, the idea was to buy a piece of land in the UK and build a shipping container house.

To the principles of Permaculture, the idea was great.

But after a few months of research it became clear that it would be very difficult if not impossible to get a license to build an off grid house in the UK.

The system does not want us to live off grid and self-sustainable!

Choosing another country

We had to include into the research some European Union countries that could be visited by car because we have our beloved dog Kala.

We included into the research: Portugal, France, Italy and Spain.

This made this so difficult, as each of these countries has its own legislation when it comes to building or restoring an off-grid home.

Things are just getting difficult.

Due to the excess of misinformation on the internet, we had to change the approach. We started following people who were already living off the grid on a self-sustainable way.

Brexit made everything more complicated.

As Brexit would take effect in February 2020, we didn’t have much time to organize the documentation of the Brexit agreement, so we had to eliminate France, Portugal and Italy.

We choosed Spain for the following reasons:

We have been going to Spain for 10 years;
I already speak the Spanish language well;
We already have property near Valencia;
We have perfect astrocartography lines;

The astrocartography lines are part of the study of how astrology plays into the energies of specific locations on the planet.

For us, the astrocartography lines in Spain are perfect!

Also, 70% of Spain is uninhabited, making the decision to go live off the grid even easier. Not to mention that the climate is fantastic and the lifestyle is incredible.

What was missing now was the documentation of the Brexit agreement.

From that moment on, applying for the “Permisso de Residencia” of the Brexit agreement between the UK and Spain became a priority for me.

I traveled to Spain and filed in the documentation in November 2019.

It was a very bureaucratic and slow process. Only in November 2022 my “Permisso de Residencia” was ready. Now I can live off grid in Spain without problems!

Conclusion

That is it for this article where I talked about the abandoned land, stone house restoration and living off the grid in Spain.

The process of restoring an abandoned land in Spain with a Stone House seems to be fast, but it is very slow.

In future articles I will talk in more detail about each of the pillars or steps of the Eridu Life Project, so you will have a clear view of what is needed before we can move and live off the grid in Spain.

P.S. If you would like to support and help us with the Eridu Life project, you can do so through Patreon or GoFundme. Your support and help will go towards the Stone House restoration.