supreme court jandia beach concession lopesan

Supreme Court to rule on Jandía beach compensation case

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

Supreme Court to review Lopesan beach rights case

The Spanish Supreme Court has admitted an appeal from Dehesa de Jandía, a company linked to Grupo Lopesan, to determine whether the State must compensate it with a use concession over a Fuerteventura beach it once owned, but which has been operated by third parties contracted by Pájara Town Council since 1985. The beach in question is Playa del Matorral, in the municipality of Pájara.

A 2014 court ruling recognised that Dehesa de Jandía had been the historic owner of that stretch of coastline until the 1988 Coast Law came into force, which established the public domain status of beaches and other maritime-terrestrial assets. That legislation provides a compensation mechanism for landowners whose property became part of the public domain: a use concession of up to 60 years, allowing those owners to maintain the same uses and activities that had been carried out up to that point.

A dispute over who ran the beach services

At Playa del Matorral, however, those uses and activities – including the placement of sun loungers, the sale of food and drink by mobile vendors, and watersports – were not operated by Dehesa de Jandía, but by third parties hired by Pájara Town Council since 1985. It was in 2015, a year after obtaining judicial recognition of its historic ownership of the beach, that the company linked to Grupo Lopesan claimed the use concession provided for under the Coast Law from the Ministry for Ecological Transition. But the Ministry rejected the request, pointing out that the sun loungers and kiosks were seasonal services managed by Pájara Town Council, not by Dehesa de Jandía.

The company appealed to the National Court, which upheld the Ministry’s decision in another ruling in 2025. The court considered that these services were not uses or activities that benefited the company and that, therefore, it was not entitled to compensation for them. It ruled that the south Fuerteventura council had acted in the exercise of its powers over seasonal services in the beach area. The National Court did, however, recognise a preferential right for Dehesa de Jandía to obtain concessions for new activities on that stretch of coast until 2048.

Company argues ruling strips it of property rights

Despite this, the company linked to Grupo Lopesan lodged a further appeal with the Supreme Court, arguing that the ruling strips its historic property right over Playa del Matorral of any substance, and alleging that Pájara Town Council had improperly managed its services, contrary to its ownership powers. This, in its view, does not eliminate its right to be compensated. Canarias Ahora contacted Pájara Town Council for its response to these allegations, but no reply had been received by the time of publication.

In an order dated 7 July 2026, the Supreme Court’s Administrative Chamber admitted the cassation appeal from Dehesa de Jandía, considering that there is a point of legal interest in determining whether uses and activities carried out on land subsequently converted into public domain – where these were exploited by third parties rather than the owner – must be compensated with a use concession, specifically that provided for in the first section of the first transitional provision of the Coast Law.

Twenty-year gap in Supreme Court precedent

The High Court noted the essential argumentative effort made by the appellant company, which cited a 2004 Supreme Court ruling in which the court held that the concessions provided for in the Coast Law do not require that the exploitation of the uses and activities had been carried out by the landowner. The Chamber considers it advisable to rule again on this matter, given that the 2004 case was the only occasion on which it had done so, more than twenty years ago.

It is worth remembering that this type of concession has a maximum duration of thirty years, extendable by a further thirty, and that beneficiary companies or individuals must scrupulously respect the existing uses and activities – in other words, the economic operations that were already being carried out.

RIU hotels: a parallel case in Corralejo

In the Canary Islands, one of the best-known examples of this model is that of the two RIU hotels located in the protected area of the Corralejo Dunes, also in Fuerteventura. In the case of one of them, the Tres Islas complex, an expiry proceedings were initiated in July 2023 after Coast Authority staff confirmed a breach of the use concession due to hotel extension works. To date, no resolution of those proceedings has been recorded.

As for the second hotel, the Oliva Beach establishment, a demolition order has been in force since February 2024, issued by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge for the same reason: works that increased the surface area of the accommodation and, therefore, breached the conditions of the concession. RIU announced shortly afterwards that it would appeal against that decision.

Historic ownership battle since 2005

The 1988 Coast Law requires that those seeking to benefit from the use concession now claimed by Lopesan must demonstrate, through a final court ruling, that they were the historic owners of the land. The company went to court after the State approved in 2005 the demarcation of a stretch of coastline of approximately 15,000 metres on the Jandía Peninsula, in southern Fuerteventura, which includes Playa del Matorral.

Dehesa de Jandía argued that the Administration had expropriated land belonging to it. It proved that in 1941 it had bought the original estate, of around 35,000 hectares (almost the entire Jandía Peninsula), from the heirs of the Marquis of Lanzarote and Count of Santa Coloma, and that, after various subdivisions, the plot affected by the demarcation had been registered in the Property Registry in 1964.

The State Legal Service, however, maintained that the claim that the abolition of the lordship in Fuerteventura in 1812 had left property rights intact in favour of private individuals was a mere assertion lacking proof and that, in any case, the State’s sovereignty over the peninsula was beyond doubt. It even went so far as to deny that the estate had been first registered by the aforementioned heirs in 1865, as Dehesa de Jandía had claimed. In an extreme request, it demanded that the company provide documentary proof that it had acquired the land before the 1880 Ports Law came into force.

In 2011, the Court of First Instance number 6 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria dismissed the attempts by the Grupo Lopesan company to obtain judicial recognition of its ownership of the area. However, in the appeal it lodged with the Provincial Court, it provided a certificate demonstrating that the estate had been first registered by the heirs of the Marquis of Lanzarote and Count of Santa Coloma in 1871, eight years before the Ports Law came into force. The court considered that the requirement set by the State Legal Service was satisfied if it could be shown that the predecessors – the nobles from whom the land had been acquired – had the plot registered. It therefore upheld the appeal and recognised its ownership.

🧭 Explore Fuerteventura with us
📰 Read more Fuerteventura news ☀️ Check Fuerteventura weather 🏝️ Get the Fuerteventura island guide 🏖️ Find the best beaches in Fuerteventura

Source

Scroll to Top