Judge orders the demolition of the Vista del Rey aparthotel in Benalmádena

The building comprises 61 apartments, 46 parking spaces, a heated outdoor swimming pool and communal areas, and currently operates as a three-star hotel under the name Vive Costa Azul.

The aparthotel is run by Grupo Vega, a conglomerate of companies based on Calle Marqués de Larios in Malaga city, which had previously been operating the Vistamar hotel illegally.

The complaint lodged by the owners of the latter hotel triggered the operation dubbed ‘Target’, which led to the arrest by the National Police of six people for their alleged involvement in offences of fraud and document forgery, including C. V. M., the head of the business group, as well as the indictment of Raúl Campos, the councillor for Planning at Benalmádena town council, and a municipal official, as reported by this newspaper.

In the ruling, to which SUR has had access, the court sets the date for the start of the demolition: 15 September 2026. The work will be carried out by Urcotexinmobiliaria, the company that won the tender launched for this purpose by the town hall in October 2025 with a bid of 410,371.50 euros, less than half the estimated budget (836,766.23 euros).

The work is to be completed within a hundred days. To enforce the ruling, the judge has requested that official letters be sent to the National Police Commissioner in Benalmádena and the chief of the Local Police “so that they may provide the necessary support to the authorities for the effective eviction of any persons found on the premises” and authorises the officers to do so by force and to break the locks on any part of the hotel. He also requests that the municipal social services be notified so that they may provide “the necessary assistance to those who have not vacated the building”.

This court ruling was reached after the town hall decided, on 1 September, to revoke the operating licence granted in August 2008 to the premises in favour of Inversiones y Promociones Inmobiliarias Ramos Blanco, the company that built the establishment under a 2001 decree issued by the then mayor, Enrique Bolín.

Furthermore, the town hall ordered the cessation of activities and rejected the business group’s attempt to transfer ownership of the operating licence via one of its companies, Vive Resort Management, which had previously been involved in the illegal operation of the Vistamar.

The Vega Group applied for interim measures, and the town hall decided not to oppose them, considering the application to be "appropriate and proportionate", despite the fact that it ran counter to its own resolution. The town hall’s stance was one of the arguments put forward by what was then Malaga’s Administrative Court No. 1 in upholding - in a ruling dated 28 November - the business group’s request, which has allowed it to continue operating the hotel.

The judicial ruling is now the response to the appeal lodged by the business group against a court order issued last May, in which it sought ‘effective interim judicial protection’ and requested a ‘reasonable timeframe’ for eviction should this prove necessary. The only remedy available against this ruling is an application for reconsideration (before the same court).

The ruling by the administrative court judge gives effect to the Supreme Court’s order of April 2021, which declared final a judgement by the Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), which ordered the local council to proceed with its demolition after the planning permission had been declared unlawful.

This ruling, in turn, confirmed an order for compulsory enforcement issued on 20 November 2017 by another Malaga court, following the judgement handed down by that same court in July 2011.