Our House Was A Very Fine House

In any Mallorcan town you are likely to stumble across a house that appears to have been abandoned. Some are in more of a ruined state than others. Some are in more prominent locations than others. The old houses in Pollensa's square were an example. The Can Ramis houses in Alcúdia market square were another before they were demolished to make way for the abomination that replaced them.

What all such houses have in common are their varying degrees of antiquity and their townhouse styles. Typically, they are joined together in the manner common to the interiors of Mallorca's old towns, either along lengthy streets or in short rows, such as was the case with the Can Ramis houses.

There is a grandeur and poignancy that attaches itself to these houses. Their histories are the towns' histories which themselves are wrapped up in families' histories. It is often these families' histories that are the reason why some of the houses become abandoned.

There is a greater sense of family possession of property in Mallorca than is common in, say, Britain. The size of the families can often be the source of problems, however, leading to squabbles over who owns what. Old land registry in Mallorca was not all that it might have been, hence properties that even today are the source of legal wrangles.

Houses can be abandoned for other reasons, such as debt, but most commonly they are because of their family histories and consequent inabilities to decide what to do with them and who should do what. The result of the abandonment can be more than a loss of grandeur and a heightening of poignancy. It can also be lack of safety or hygiene and will always be degradation in terms of appearance. It is for these reasons that Sa Pobla town hall has decided to compile a report on all such properties in the town, to pursue owners (those believed to be owners perhaps), and to seal some up if necessary.

The health and safety aspect of abandonment was highlighted not so long ago in Sa Pobla's neighbour, Muro. There, several houses in a street had been neglected and were infested with rats. But it isn't only houses that are privately owned that can pose a health or safety risk because they are not being looked after properly. In Pollensa, Can Llobera, the former family home of one of Pollensa's most famous sons, Miquel Costa i Llobera, he of the poem "Pi de Formentor", had suffered partial collapse. It had been acquired some time before by the town hall, but the lack of care was such that water ingress through the roof had not only threatened to cause there to be more collapse, it had also led to the destruction of documents that were meant to have been preserved for posterity and as part of the town's patrimony.

Mallorcan families and Mallorcan town halls are not alone in allowing buildings to degenerate. A German family owns a house in Can Picafort. It was one of the first to be built at the start of Can Picafort's modern era in the late 1950s. The house was handed down to the son and daughter, the latter now dead, the former alive and wealthy.

Despite the rest of the family arguing that something has to be done with the house, the son has constantly refused. Why? Well, one has to understand that there is a German tendency to be as unwilling to relinquish family property as among the Mallorcans. The son has no need for the money that might come from the sale of the property (or the plot). He would rather it remains as some form of tribute, despite its abandoned state. He had allowed someone to use it for storage, and this was how it was being used when some three or four years ago, a niece went to the house, only to find that a German vagrant was living in it. The house had no utilities, yet the vagrant had been there for some considerable time. Seemingly, he had simply been let in by the chap with the keys for the storage. The niece said that he might as well continue living there. At least he was acting as a sort of caretaker or security guard.

The Can Picafort house is of much more recent vintage than the townhouses of the old towns, thus proving that it is not only antiquity and ancient family squabbles that lead to abandonment. There is a further example, even more recent, the ruin by Playa de Muro beach, the house that has never been finished because it ran up against a family dispute, unresolved years later.

There is a widely held view of Mallorcans among the British (and even among some Mallorcans) that they are incredibly greedy when it comes to property. It is a view that has some justification. Owners may well prefer to let a property rot if they can't get out of it what they want, be it through sale, rental or even living in it. But at the heart of most abandoned properties in Mallorca, there is one story only, and that is one of families.


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