Hollywood stars Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffiths' garden seized as Spain cracks down on illegal coastal homes

Hollywood stars Melanie Griffiths and Antonio Banderas have been ordered to hand over a huge chunk of their £5million beachfront home as part of Spain's crackdown on illegal properties.
The Mask of Zorro star, 48, and his wife have been ordered to hand over 14,000 square feet of land.
The confiscated strip will allow public access to the beach - but will wreck the couple's 40ft swimming pool.
Actor Antonio Banderas and his wife actress Melanie Griffith arrive at the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles this year. The couple face having their garden seized as Spain cracks down on overbuilding
Actor Antonio Banderas and his wife actress Melanie Griffith arrive at the 56th
annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles this year. The couple face having
their garden seized as Spain cracks down on overbuilding
Planning chiefs say a large strip of land currently within the walls of the property should be made public.
A source said: 'The swimming pool itself will go untouched, but the area being seized goes right up to the edge of the pool, which will ruin their enjoyment of it.'
The couple bought the six-bedroom villa, called La Gaviota, near Marbella, as their summer home 12 years ago after renting it for a year. It had been granted a building licence two years previously.
Banderas, who is Spanish, used it to rehearse his part in the hit film The Mask of Zorro.
In 2003 the actor found the property at the centre of a row when the Andalusian High Court ruled the licence should not have been granted.
An aerial view of the £5million property owned by Antonio Banderas in Marbella on the Costa del Sol - with the large portion of its land that it is set to lose marked up
An aerial view of the £5million property owned by Antonio Banderas in Marbella
on the Costa del Sol - with the large portion of its land that it is set to lose marked up
Last year he was ordered to knock down a 300-square foot wing of the mansion.
He is still appealing that decision.
Now he has also been ordered to hand over part of his garden.
Spain's socialist government ordered a crack down on illegally built coastal homes last year.
Beachfront properties along 500 miles of the country's coastline are being targeted.
The Spanish authorities have also been cracking down on properties which have been granted planning permission despite being built on green-belt land.
In January 2008 British expats Len and Helen Prior watched as bulldozers tore down their £550,000 home in Vera, in south-east Spain.
The move sent shockwaves through British and Irish expat communities on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol.
A court has since ruled that the demolition was illegal.
By Tom Worden

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