A British couple who chose Malta as their retirement destination are claiming the planning authority is harassing them by insisting they demolish an illegal one-metre en suite and a washroom built more than 27 years ago.

The one-metre en suite and washroom was built more than 27 years ago

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority is insisting that a temporary extension to an en suite adjoining one of their bedrooms, and a 15 square-metre washroom were not built according to plans when the house in Lija was rebuilt in the mid-1980s.

Leonard and Karen Weller were hoping for a relaxing time when they chose to retire in Malta. Ms Weller was born in Malta while her father was stationed on the island in the 1950s and she had always wanted to return, she said.

Ms Weller and her 75-year-old husband fell in love with the Lija property publicised online and bought it in 2002 for almost €250,000.

The estate agent who sold the property to them did not mention any illegalities, while the architect they commissioned found that the building was not built according to Mepa plans.

However, he assured them that only 20 per cent of properties were completely legal and all they had to do was file an application to sanction the bits and bobs which were not in line in this secluded property surrounded by fields and few other properties.

But little did they know the problems they had to face. Six years after they bought the property, they received a letter, in Maltese, from a Mepa enforcement officer saying the authority had received a report on the illegal change of use of a garage adjacent to their house which had been turned into a room and that the en suite and the washroom were illegal.

Ms Weller explained that the house had originally been built in 1749 – a date they found engraved on one of the stones. The previous owner inherited the house and in 1985 got permission to demolish the building, which was quickly deteriorating.

The new structure was built on the same footprint as the previous one and while work was under way, inspectors had visited the site to point out it was not being built according to plans, including the recessed washroom. However, it was approved and work went ahead.

In 2008, the couple applied for sanctioning and attended a sitting held in Maltese despite their appeals.

Last week, more than four years later, the planning appeals board ruled that while the change of use of the garage was acceptable, the one-metre protrusion of the en suite and the relatively small washroom which barely shows from the alley leading to the house, had to go. They were given 30 days to submit fresh plans.

“Unfortunately, there is nothing on the file that inspectors had okayed them when the building was under way back then. Whose life will a small washroom and a one-metre extension change if they’re demolished? It will cost us a hell of a lot of money. They are just being spiteful and vindictive because we are foreigners,” she said.

“We are being punished now just because they were slack in the 1980s. We are the victims not the perpetrators,” Mr Weller added.

He said the en suite and the washroom have not caused any nuisance to anybody over almost three decades but now the authorities were picking on them and “discriminating” against them.

“The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal would not have treated a Maltese citizen so harshly. Everything that is in the book has been thrown at us. We were naive and gullible and we are being severely punished for it,” Ms Weller said.

We were naive and gullible and we are being severely punished for it

The couple complained that the fact all correspondence and communication during meetings was in Maltese was “a sign of contempt and discrimination”.

Questions sent to Mepa asking for a reaction to the couple’s claims and an explanation on the case remained unanswered by the time of going to print.

mxuereb@timesofmalta.com