Marina Alta
On this stretch of coast the criminal problem rarely arrives at night. It arrives by deed, by licence or by transfer.
Arrest attendance, defence and private prosecution before the Tribunal de Instancia of Dénia, which covers the whole comarca. We work in English throughout.
In brief. English-speaking criminal defence lawyer in Dénia and Jávea: 24h arrest attendance, property fraud, planning offences and private prosecution in the Marina Alta.
At a glance
If you live in Xàbia, Moraira, Calp, Benissa or Gata de Gorgos, your criminal case is not heard where you live. It is heard in Dénia, which is the seat of the judicial district for the entire Marina Alta. That surprises people, and it matters practically: every hearing means a journey, and for a non-resident owner it can mean a flight.
Since 1 July 2025, under Organic Law 1/2025, the former investigating and criminal courts have been absorbed into Sections of the Tribunal de Instancia of Dénia. Rights, deadlines and procedure are unchanged; only the name on the summons is different, and that alone has caused a good deal of confusion this year.
Unlike the resort towns further south, the Marina Alta is settled residence. Our English-speaking clients here generally own a property, belong to a community of owners, hold a Spanish bank account and often have an estate matter somewhere in the background. The criminal cases that arise reflect that.
They are slow, documentary and expensive. A planning prosecution or a fraud in the purchase of a villa is not resolved in a fast-track hearing over a fortnight: it is investigated over months, it concerns an asset that may be a family’s principal wealth, and it drags civil and administrative consequences that outlive the criminal case itself.
Three features recur. Property is often empty for months, so burglaries are discovered late and the evidence has already degraded. Ownership is frequently complex, with holding companies, co-ownership between relatives of different nationalities, usufructs and estates governed by foreign law, so establishing who is even entitled to act can be the first fight. And in planning and environmental matters a municipal file and a criminal case commonly run in parallel on the same facts, with what is said in one capable of surfacing in the other.
Areas
We attend from the outset and at the Tribunal de Instancia of Dénia when you are brought before a judge. Detention may not exceed seventy-two hours.
Deposits paid on properties with undisclosed charges, double sales, developments never built and advance payments diverted elsewhere. Values here place most cases in the aggravated bracket.
Building and extensions on rural or specially protected land, common on the hillsides and around the Montgó. Demolition at the offender’s cost can be ordered.
Managing agents and committees handling money for urbanisations where many owners are absent for much of the year and nobody audits.
Powers granted on arrival in Spain and still in force decades later, used long after the circumstances that justified them have gone.
Fake trading platforms targeting foreign residents with available savings. How fast you report determines whether the money can be traced.
Break-ins at villas during months of absence, and occupation of empty property. The two are legally distinct and the routes differ sharply.
Discharges, works in the maritime-terrestrial public domain and impacts on protected areas, usually alongside a municipal enforcement file.
Altered documents in international successions, powers used beyond their scope and dispositions obtained from elderly owners.
What the courts have held
Why we tell you not to speak first. It is not evasiveness, and it is not a tactic invented by defence lawyers. The Constitutional Court has ruled that a detained person must be given sufficient information about the reasons for the arrest and access to the elements of the file essential to assess its lawfulness, and that this access must be guaranteed before the first questioning; denying it while refusing a habeas corpus application breaches the right to personal liberty (STC 21/2018, 5 March, First Chamber, amparo 3766-2016, ECLI:ES:TC:2018:21). The same principle underpins the earlier ruling on access to the police report (STC 13/2017, 30 January, amparo 7301-2014, ECLI:ES:TC:2017:13), restated recently (STC 86/2025, 7 April, amparo 120-2023, ECLI:ES:TC:2025:86).
On money handed over for a stated purpose and used for another. This is the legal shape of most community-of-owners and power-of-attorney cases in this comarca. The Supreme Court has upheld a conviction for misappropriation of funds received with a determined destination, clarifying that where the elements of that offence are present the relationship with neighbouring provisions is not automatically resolved in favour of the special rule (STS 354/2022, 6 April, Criminal Chamber, cassation 905/2020, ROJ: STS 1451/2022, ECLI:ES:TS:2022:1451).
On how long an investigation may take. Property and estate cases live or die on documentary and registry evidence, which is slow to obtain. A recent ruling clarifies the counting of the investigation time limit under article 324 of the Criminal Procedure Act, and sets out the costs regime where there is a private prosecution (STS 747/2024, 18 July, Criminal Chamber, cassation 2295/2022, ROJ: STS 4260/2024, ECLI:ES:TS:2024:4260). Extensions must be applied for before the clock runs out, and this is a common way a strong case is lost.
These references come from the firm’s own knowledge base. They must be checked against the original source before being relied on in any pleading, and this page is not legal advice.
Process
Investigation. The Investigation Section takes statements, orders expert evidence and requires bank and land registry disclosure. This phase decides property and fraud cases, because it fixes the material the trial will later use.
Time limits. The law caps how long an investigation may run and requires reasoned applications to extend. Documentary and registry evidence is slow to obtain, and letting the clock expire closes the enquiry before the picture is complete.
Intermediate stage. The case is either closed or sent for trial, and this is when the legal characterisation is argued.
Trial. Depending on the sentence sought, before the Criminal Section or the Provincial Court of Alicante. Minor offences are dealt with in a single hearing.
Enforcement. Suspension of sentence and, for a foreign national, the effect on residence status. This frequently matters more to the client than the conviction itself.
What decides it
In property and fraud matters, in traceability. Complete bank statements rather than app screenshots, contracts with every annex, land registry extracts, emails with their original headers. A file documented from the start lets you advance a case; one reconstructed afterwards leaves you defending someone else’s.
In planning matters, in two facts almost nobody has to hand when the summons arrives: the provable age of what was built, and the exact classification of the land at the time it was built. Both come from municipal and cadastral archives and both take time to obtain.
And in every case, in the early decision about whether to give a statement. The right of defence exists from the moment an offence is attributed to you, and the Constitutional Court has placed access to the essential elements of the file before the first questioning.
Private prosecution
This is the procedural right most foreign residents never use, and it has no real equivalent in English or Irish law. Report a crime and go home and you are a witness: the case is driven by the public prosecutor, who carries hundreds of files and acts on grounds of general interest.
Appearing as a private prosecution, with your own lawyer and court agent, makes you a party. You see the whole file, propose lines of enquiry, appeal what goes against you, frame your own charge and claim your own compensation.
In this comarca that is decisive. In a misappropriation of community funds, the forensic accounting that quantifies the loss will not be commissioned by the prosecutor of its own motion; it is commissioned by whoever has an interest in the answer. In a property fraud, tracing where the deposits went requires specific disclosure requests to specific banks, drafted and justified. What nobody asks for is not investigated.
There is also a practical benefit: compensation is determined inside the criminal case, without a separate civil action afterwards.
How we work
English throughout, and in writing. Every significant ruling explained in an email you can read. Court interpreters are for hearings; your relationship with your own lawyer should not depend on one.
The file examined before any statement. We enter an appearance and read the proceedings first.
Travel kept to a minimum. Much can be done under a power of attorney, and we group hearings where the court allows it. You should not be flying to Spain for procedural steps that do not require you.
Coordination with the municipal file. In planning and environmental cases we handle both tracks together, because what is admitted in one is read in the other.
Fixed fees by stage, quoted in writing before you commit.
Who we act for
Long-term foreign residents with a home, roots and assets in Spain, for whom a conviction reaches well beyond the sentence: residence, licences, and reputation in a small community.
Non-resident owners who discover a burglary, an occupation or missing community funds on their return. We act under power of attorney.
Buyers caught in a failed purchase, where the question is first whether the matter is criminal at all or a civil breach of contract. We will tell you honestly which it is.
Owners facing a planning file, including buyers who inherited an irregular extension built by somebody else.
Local businesses in hospitality, marine services and construction, with exposure both personally and as a company.
Practical
The strength of a case here is decided almost entirely by documents, and documents degrade. Companies are dissolved, websites go offline, managing agents are replaced and the people who witnessed a handover move away.
For a property matter: the deed and any private contract with every annex, the land registry extract, proof of every payment with the beneficiary named, the licence file if there is one, and all correspondence with the seller, agent or developer in its original form. Statements from the bank rather than screenshots, because a statement is a document a court can work with.
For a community matter: minutes of general meetings, the accounts as approved, the management contract, and the community’s bank records obtained directly from the bank. What the administrator prepared is not independent evidence of what the administrator did.
For an investment loss: every transfer with date, amount and destination, screenshots of the platform showing the supposed balance and any withdrawal request, and complete conversations rather than selected messages. The ordinary early exchanges matter as much as the ones about money, because they show how the confidence was built.
For a planning file: anything establishing when the works were done, from old photographs with metadata to utility connection records and past tax receipts. Age is often the decisive fact and it is the hardest to prove years later.
Do not tidy, annotate or reorganise any of it. Send it as you hold it. Cases are regularly built on material clients assumed was worthless.
Related
Questions
Yes. Dénia is the seat of the judicial district covering Xàbia, Calp, Teulada and Moraira, Benissa and the rest of the Marina Alta. All criminal matters from those towns are investigated and tried there.
It depends who built it, when, and on what class of land. The offence under article 319 falls on developers, builders and the technicians who directed the works, not automatically on a later purchaser. A demolition order, however, affects the property, and therefore you. It is a matter to analyse with the documents in hand rather than to panic about.
It is the first serious question in most purchase cases and it is not rhetorical. Poor performance, bad management or non-payment are not offences. Fraud requires deception that precedes or accompanies the payment and causes it. Getting this wrong means a complaint that is dismissed with costs, so we assess it before filing anything.
Generally no. Much is done by your lawyer under a power of attorney. You are needed for your own statement and for trial, and video link can sometimes be requested. We plan it so you travel as little as possible.
Resolve at a general meeting to audit the accounts, and obtain the community’s banking records directly from the bank rather than the statements the administrator prepared. Only then can misappropriation or disloyal administration be properly assessed. Acting without that accounting foundation usually ends in dismissal.
A minor offence, months. A fraud investigation with documentary and expert evidence, years, and longer still where foreign banks are involved. Anyone who gives you a firm date at the first meeting is telling you what you want to hear.
Next step
A first conversation will tell you whether there is a case worth pursuing, and whether it belongs in the criminal courts at all. If it does not, we will say so.
Arrested or under investigation in Dénia and Jávea?
Our criminal defence team assists English-speaking clients 24 hours a day. Urgent line: 669 30 21 13 — Alicante and across Spain.
Société de Conseil Juridique et Expert es un despacho de abogados con sedes en Madrid, Alicante, Londres y París, especializado en defensa y acusación penal, delitos económicos y corporativos y derecho tecnológico. Trabajamos con orientación estratégica en procedimientos penales complejos, propiedad intelectual y análisis forense avanzado, y prestamos consultoría jurídica, compliance y escudos de protección a particulares y empresas. Atendemos desde Alicante y Madrid, con consulta online en toda España y asistencia al detenido 24 horas. Resuelva sus dudas en las preguntas frecuentes o solicite una primera consulta.
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