Torrevieja Town Hall plans to put 113 garages and storerooms from its municipal heritage up for auction by the end of the year. The properties will be grouped into several lots through a patrimonial business contract, with a combined starting price of around 630,000€. The local Partido Popular governing team estimates that bidding could raise the total outcome of the operation to 1.8 million euro, although that figure currently remains only a forecast.
The future tender will complete a process that began in 2022 and has taken much longer than expected. The main obstacle has been bringing order to an inventory built up over many years, checking the status of each property, determining which could be sold and under what conditions, as well as securing staff to focus exclusively on this goal.
The properties are not uniform, nor are they concentrated solely within Torrevieja. There are garages and storerooms in the municipality itself, but also in Orihuela Costa, Rojales and Guardamar del Segura. This dispersion has added complexity to an operation that requires identifying and valuing the properties before grouping them for auction.
The majority of these assets came into municipal hands as a result of seizures from individuals and companies due to debts owed to the Town Hall. To a lesser extent, developers also made contributions. In many cases, Suma Gestión Tributaria had previously attempted to sell the properties through enforcement proceedings. Failing to find a buyer, the assets were eventually incorporated into the municipal heritage to account for the outstanding debts.
The objective of the auction is not limited to generating revenue. The Town Hall wants to divest itself of properties that hold little practical use for the administration but forces it to assume expenses and obligations like any other owner, including community fees. As the municipality is not an ordinary owner or a resident in those communities, it has often had to pay fees with late payment interest after failing to meet demands immediately. While these payments are now up to date, the storerooms and garages contribute very little to municipal management.
This issue was already identified in 2022 when the local council began preparing to bring this heritage to the market. At that time, municipal assets included situations such as 19 garages in a residential area of Rojales, alongside other properties located outside the municipal boundary of Torrevieja.
Preparing the file since then has required refining the list of assets and separating those that could realistically form part of the auction. The Town Hall has decided to exclude certain commercial premises that also form part of its heritage because they are subject to various easements and limitations that complicate their sale.
This disposal forms part of a much larger chapter of municipal asset sales planned in the 2027 municipal budget to balance municipal income accounts. The Town Hall expects to raise a further 16 million euro from the sale of a portion of the approximately 200 subsidised housing units due to it from land transfers under the Generalitat’s Plan Vive public housing project.
This income was previously included in the 2025 budget but ultimately proved unnecessary—the houses have not even been started—because bank debt could be settled using treasury surpluses when the 2024 budgets were liquidated, allowing financial debt to continue being paid from that surplus. Forecasts that the projects awarded to Urdecón, Grupo Hozono and Livanto will eventually be carried out are not particularly optimistic.