Can I get a tourist licence for a townhouse in the old town?

Sometimes, and less often than elsewhere in Jávea. Under the initial approval of 28 May 2026 the casco histórico carries the strictest cap in town at 6 percent of dwellings, pending final approval and publication in the BOP, and new apartment licences are suspended for a year across the town. A single-family townhouse keeps the clearer route, subject to the cap and the municipal compatibility report. We check the live position for the exact address before you commit money to the plan.

The house has been renovated several times over the decades. Is that a problem?

It depends on what was done, when, and whether it ever reached the Registry, and there is no shortcut around checking. Most old town houses carry some mismatch between the escritura, the Catastro and the building itself. Most of it is fixable, some of it changes the price, and a small part can block the second-occupation paperwork. The point is to find out before the arras is signed, while it is still the seller's problem to solve.

Do I need the cédula de segunda ocupación when I buy?

For an existing home it runs as a declaración responsable under Decreto 12/2021, valid ten years and renewed when the property changes hands or a new utility contract is signed, so a purchase is exactly when it comes up. Without it you cannot connect or transfer water and electricity, which in a house you plan to renovate is the whole game. We confirm it as part of the purchase checks.

What taxes do I pay when buying a casco townhouse?

A resale, which in the old town is nearly everything, pays ITP at the Comunidad Valenciana general rate of 9 percent for deeds from 1 June 2026, with 11 percent on the part of the price above 1,000,000 euros. Add roughly 0.2 to 0.5 percent for the notary and 0.1 to 0.25 percent for the Land Registry. After that come the annual costs: IBI to Xàbia Tributa and the Modelo 210 filing with the AEAT. We put your exact numbers in writing before you commit.

Zone guide · Jávea (Xàbia)

Buying Property in Jávea's Old Town

The casco histórico is the Jávea of stone townhouses and narrow streets, the part of town that stayed most Spanish. Legally, it is the zone where the building's history matters more than anything on a map: old reforms, habitability paperwork and, under the council's initial approval, the tightest tourist-let cap in town.

How we handle a purchase

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So, the old town. Most people arrive in Jávea through the beach photographs, then wander up into the casco one morning, find stone townhouses and streets built long before anyone dreamed of tourism, and something shifts. The people who buy here were never really looking for a villa with a pool.

Legally, the casco is its own world. There is no Ley de Costas line to trace and no Montgó boundary to check. What you are buying is a building with a long history, and the legal work is about that history: renovations that never reached the Land Registry, habitability paperwork that wakes up the moment you renovate or sign a new utility contract, and, under the council's initial approval of 28 May 2026, the strictest tourist-let cap in Jávea.

Jávea sits right between our two offices, Moraira on one side and Dénia on the other; we are in town every week, at the notary, the town hall and the property, with well over 100 completed purchases in the town over the years.

Who buys in Jávea Old Town (Casco Histórico)

The casco is the corner of Jávea that stayed most Spanish and Valencian, and the foreigners who buy here choose it precisely for that. Character-seekers, mostly: a British couple trading a big garden for a rooftop terrace, Dutch and German renovators who want stone rather than white render, owners planning to live here most of the year instead of two weeks in August. The British are the town's largest foreign community, around 6,000 people, the biggest British colony in the whole Comunitat Valenciana, yet walk these streets on a weekday morning and you will still hear Valencian, something the coastal urbanisations lost a long time ago. Townhouses to renovate appear from around 145,000 euros, an indicative figure that moves, which is part of the pull. The renovation is where the legal work lives.

What we actually check in Jávea Old Town (Casco Histórico)

The reform that never reached the Registry

A townhouse that has stood for a century has been altered a dozen times, and most of those alterations were never registered. A bathroom added in the eighties, a closed roof terrace, two houses quietly knocked into one. None of it matters until a sale, when someone compares the escritura, the Catastro and the actual building, and finds three different houses. Usually fixable, but it takes time and changes the price conversation, so we run that comparison before the arras is signed, never after. Jávea has two Land Registries, both on Calle Historiador Chabás, and we check the title at whichever one holds the finca.

Segunda ocupación: the paper an old house has to earn

The habitability paper for an existing home works as a declaración responsable under Decreto 12/2021, valid ten years and renewed when the property changes hands or a new utility contract is signed. In the old town that rule has teeth, because buying here so often means renovating, and renovating means new water and electricity contracts. Now, whether a past reform blocks the declaration is a genuine it depends: what was done, when, and how the building stands today. There is no rule of thumb we would trust. We put eyes on the file and tell you where you stand before you commit.

Townhouses that quietly became flats

Plenty of casco townhouses were split into two or three dwellings somewhere along the way, and if the division was never legalised, that is one more unregistered reform, only bigger. It also collides with the letting rules. A tourist let must be a whole dwelling, letting by the room is prohibited, and since 3 April 2025 new apartment lets in a community need a three fifths majority of the owners. Add the town-wide one-year suspension of new apartment licences under the initial approval, and a plan built on buying big, splitting and letting the pieces does not currently work here.

Holiday lets after 28 May 2026

Tourist lets in the old town: the strictest cap in Jávea

On 28 May 2026 the council gave initial approval to per-zone caps on tourist licences, and the casco histórico drew the tightest number in town: 6 percent of dwellings, against 12 percent at the port and 25 percent in El Tosalet. That is an initial approval only, still pending final approval and publication in the BOP of Alicante, so the figure can move. The regional layer is already in force: since Decreto-ley 9/2024, a let of ten days or fewer to the same guest is a tourist let, it needs a municipal urban compatibility report and a registration valid for five years, and fines reach 600,000 euros. Single-family homes keep the clearer route, subject to the cap. Honestly, if letting is part of your numbers for an old town house, we check the live position for the exact address before you buy, not after.

Tourist rental licences in Jávea: the current rules and our fixed fee

Owning in Jávea Old Town (Casco Histórico), the tax side

Jávea collects its own local taxes through Xàbia Tributa, one of very few towns in Alicante province that does not use SUMA, so your IBI works differently here than in Dénia or Teulada next door. The rate is 0.85 percent of the valor catastral under the 2023 ordinance; a small cut was approved for 2025 and a councillor cited 0.83, so we check the current figure rather than guess, and the new waste charge has been billed from the same office since August 2025. None of that touches the national side: as a non-resident you also file Modelo 210 with the AEAT every year, even when the townhouse just sits there, usually on 2 percent of the valor catastral because Jávea's general revision is an old one. We confirm the band against your receipt.

Modelo 210 in Jávea: what non-resident owners file, and our fee

Jávea Old Town (Casco Histórico): questions buyers actually ask

Keep reading

Buying Property in Jávea Tourist Rental Licence in Jávea Modelo 210 in Jávea Jávea zone by zone

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