Town·Planning Infringements By Juan Bertomeu Vallés, Lawyer Classification of the town-planning infringements. The town-planning infringements are classified in very grave, grave and minor infringements. Very Grave Infringements are the actions -and omissions- that constitute a breach of the town-planning rules applicable to the use of the land, and buildings that affect to green zones, free spaces, land for public equipments, or Protected non urbanizable Land. Also,it is considered very grave infringements the illegal division into plots done in non urbanisable land. Grave Infringements are the actions -and omissions- wich supposse contravention of the rules applicable to division into plots, town-planning use, edificability, use of the land, height, volume and location of the buildings, and the occupation surface that exceed the authorized limit in each plot. It constitutes also a grave infringement when the Development Agent –Urbanizador- breaches the commitments assumed with the Town Council or with the owners (except the breach of the period for complete the development, when it is not superior to a third of the fixed one). Expiration or prescription of the Infringements. The grave and the very grave infringments expire in four years, and the minor infringements, in one year. The term of prescription is calculated since the date in which the infringement is committed or, if this one is unknown, since the date in which the disciplinary procedure could have been initiated (for example, when appear exterior signs that evidence there has been commited a planning infringement). In case of continued infringements, the term of prescription begins since the end of the activity, or the date of the last act with which the infringement is completed (Continued infringement is the repetition of similar illegal acts when all of them have a unit of target in the same plot). In any case, the law presumes that the acts of illegal division into plots constitutes continued infringement. The prescription of the infringement is interrupted when the interested one has knowledge, by means of official notification, of the initiation of disciplinary procedure for the protection of the town-planning legality. Responsible persons. The person whose conduct, works, or activities incur in town-planning infringement is the responsible one. In case of infringements relative to acts of execution of constructions and use of the land, the promoter, the builder and the director or the directors of the building are also responsible. The owner of the land in which the infringement is committed -except evidence to the contrary- will be considered promoter of the ilegall works, assuming the consecuences. The legal persons are sanctioned by the planning infringements committed by the managers and agents, being them, personally, subsidiary responsible. The supplier companies of essential services – water, electricity, etc- are also responsible when they supplie those services without obtaining a copy of the planning permit. Subsidiary responsible persons are the agents or managers whose conduct has been decisive to provide the illegal services. Autonomy of the sanctions. The sanctions by infringements are imposed with independence of the precautionary measures for the maintenance of town-planning order and of the definitive ones for its restoration. The sanctions that are imposed to the different responsible subjects by the same infringement have, between them, independent character. If the condition of promoter, builder or director of the work is dispersed in two or more persons the amount of the sanction, inside each of these groups, must be distributed between them in proportion to their grade of participation in the commission of the infringement, or to equal parts, if it could not be stablished. If the condition of promoter, builder and director of work, or of several of them, meet in the same person, only a sanction is imposed on him. Connected infringements. In the cases in which are instructed disciplinary procedure for two or more infringements, with connection of cause/effect, only one sanction is imposed, and it will be the one that corresponds to the most grave infringement in the maximum penalty. In other case, on the persons responsible of two or more town-planning infringements without conection of cause / effect, are imposed the sanctions corresponding to each of the committed infringements. | 
