The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country has condemned the Irún City Council to pay a community of owners 214,598.86 euros plus interest for using private streets open to the public for years without assuming any maintenance costs. Justice concludes that the administration cannot benefit from the general use of a private road without financially compensating its owners.
According to the ruling of February 24, 2026, the community requested the City Council to cancel a servitude of public use that affected several roads of their property, as well as to pay their maintenance expenses during the years that they had been using it without assuming costs. Faced with the administration’s refusal, the neighbors went to court.
In the first instance, the Contentious-Administrative Court No. 2 of San Sebastián partially upheld the claim, allowing the easement to be cancelled, but rejected the City Council having to pay the maintenance costs of previous years.
The City Council has to pay after years of public use of the community road
The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country, however, considered that the Irún City Council would have to assume the cost of maintaining the road.
The key, according to the ruling, is that although the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) of 2015 provided for the disappearance of the public use easement, its cancellation never materialized due to the actions of the City Council. During that time, the road continued to be used freely by citizens, without the owners being able to limit that use and even the City Council prevented its closure.
The court considered it contradictory that the administration denied the existence of the easement to avoid payment, while maintaining public use of the space and even preventing its closure. Therefore, it concluded that it could not benefit from that situation without assuming the costs.
The 2015 PGOU establishes in its article 3.5.3 that, in spaces subject to easements for public use, it is up to the City Council to assume the costs of maintenance and conservation. Articles 543 and 544 of the Civil Code oblige the owner who benefits from an easement to cover the necessary expenses for its use and conservation.
Furthermore, the court rejected the distinction between “administrative” and “civil” easements when this implies transferring all costs to individuals, also remembering the principle that the burdens derived from the general interest cannot fall exclusively on a few owners, in line with urban planning regulations.
For all this, the court orders the Irún City Council to pay 214,598.86 euros plus the corresponding legal interest. However, the sentence was not final and an appeal could be filed against it.