Plenty of the villas we show in the hills above Cabrils and Alella end with pines at the bottom of the garden. That is usually why people like them. It is also why the insurance broker asks a second question.
The Maresme is one of the Catalan comarques with a standing high risk of forest fire. Not because every summer is extreme, but because the geography puts houses directly against the woodland. The ridges above Cabrils, Alella and Teià, the urbanizaciones of Supermaresme, Sant Berger and Rocaferrera, the lanes around Òrrius and Dosrius, all of it sits inside or within a few hundred metres of pine and scrub. A dry winter, two weeks of north wind, and the whole slope is a fuse.
None of this means you should not rent there. It means that a house on a wooded plot is a different product from a house on a cleared one, and the difference has a price, a legal obligation and a routine attached to it.
Catalan law, Llei 5/2003, requires a perimeter protection strip of at least 25 metres around urbanizaciones, population nuclei, isolated buildings and installations that sit in forest land or within 500 metres of it. Inside that strip the dry vegetation has to be cleared and the tree cover thinned. It is not a recommendation. It is an obligation that comes with the property, and it is checked.
In an urbanización the work normally falls on the community of owners or the urbanistic collaborating entity. For an isolated house it falls on the owner, and the town hall can act in their place and charge them for it. Urbanizaciones in forest land also have to hold a self-protection plan, the pla d'autoprotecció, which sets out access routes, water points and what residents do when a fire is close.
The clearing obligation follows the building, not the tenancy, so the cost sits with the owner. What the lease should do is say so out loud, because in practice the work is often subcontracted and the invoices disappear into the community budget. Ask for the last clearing invoice and the name of the company. If the strip has not been touched for two seasons, that is a negotiation point, not a detail.
There is a grey area when the 25 metres cross a neighbour's plot or a wooded strip owned by several owners. Then the community has to coordinate, and progress depends on how well the community works. A president who can show you the minutes and the contractor is worth more than a nice gate.
During the high-risk period, roughly mid-March to mid-October, barbecues are banned in forest land and in the 500-metre band around it. So is any fire for garden waste: burning garden cuttings is not allowed at all in Catalonia. Agricultural burning is a narrow exception, by prior communication from 16 October to 14 March and usually by authorisation between 15 March and 15 October, and it stops entirely when the Pla Alfa level reaches 3 or 4.
Fines for lighting a fire in a prohibited area can pass 3,000 euros, and they land on whoever lit it. That includes the tenant. A cigarette thrown from a car window, a hot exhaust over dry grass, an angle grinder in July, all of it belongs in the same paragraph of common sense.
The instruction from the Generalitat is usually to stay put rather than drive. Close windows and shutters, switch off air conditioning and ventilation, seal the gap under doors with wet towels, move to the most interior room, and follow the Mossos and the town hall rather than a family WhatsApp group. Keep passports, medication, chargers and the dog lead in one bag during the risk months. If you are told to evacuate, leave by the route you are given.
A cleared plot with olives, vines and a lawn behaves differently in a fire from a dense pine wood, and it also looks different. Some of the most spectacular gardens in the Maresme are spectacular because nobody has thinned them for thirty years. If the view is the reason you are renting, fine. Just do not be surprised when the insurance premium and the clearing invoice arrive in the same month.
We ask owners for the clearing record before we list a wooded property, and we tell tenants what the routine is. It is not a reason to walk away from a beautiful house. It is a reason to know what you are renting.
Tell us the urbanización and we will tell you how the access, the water and the clearing actually work there. We are on this coast every week.
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