Dénia has rewritten the sewer rule, and distance no longer decides whether you must connect

If your house sits on the Montgó, or on a plot inland, you have probably been told you are too far from the mains for the sewer to be your problem. Under the old rules that was broadly right. The council rewrote them in 2025, and the answer is no longer that simple.

What changed

The previous text dated from 2009. It obliged dwellings and businesses less than 100 metres from the network, counted along public roads, to connect at their own cost. It imposed that duty only on plots inside the 100 metres; it said nothing about those beyond.

The new text was approved definitively at the plenary of 24 April 2025, published in the provincial gazette of Alicante on 9 May 2025, and took effect fifteen working days after that publication.

The rewritten rule has two limbs. Plots where any point of the perimeter lies less than 100 metres from the network, counted through public roads, must connect when the council requires it. And plots whose nearest perimeter point is 100 metres or more away — in the ordinance's own words — must connect too.

So does distance still matter?

Less than owners assume — but the ordinance is not perfectly consistent with itself.

The duty is now stated in general terms, and past 100 metres the council can start the works on its own initiative as a public work. Yet two other articles are still drafted around the 100-metre line. The one on execution orders — the mechanism by which the council orders the connection built and, if that is ignored, builds it at the owner's cost — is worded by reference to plots with a perimeter point under 100 metres. And on land classified as non-urbanisable, the council may require connection up to a maximum of 100 metres by public road.

How the general duty sits alongside those two provisions is not resolved on the face of the ordinance. What is clear is that distance no longer answers the question on its own, and that which provision applies to a given plot turns on how the land is classified — something to establish for that plot, not to assume from the area.

You cannot measure this off a map

The distance runs through public roads, not in a straight line, and from any point of the plot's perimeter, not from the house.

That cuts both ways. A villa sixty metres from a sewer across a ravine can be well over 100 metres once you follow the road between them. A long plot can fall inside the limit because one corner of its boundary, nowhere near the house, meets a road the network reaches.

Who pays

Under 100 metres, the works are promoted and financed in their entirety by the owners, under the council's technical direction.

At 100 metres or more it splits. If the owner applies for the connection, the owner finances it. If the council starts the works itself as a public work, the council executes them, financed by the owners and the council together, by a mechanism the council decides.

Either way the duty attaches to the plot: whoever owns it when the council requires connection is the one who deals with it. That makes it a question to settle before you buy.

The one exception, and what expires with it

A plot is not obliged to connect if it holds an authorisation from the basin authority saying it need not, and only while the conditions that body sets for treating the waste water produced there are met. For Dénia that authority is the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar, which does not authorise a discharge where connection to the network is viable — so the route is open only where connection is not viable.

If the authorisation is temporary, on expiry the owner must connect or apply for a new one. A seller can hand over a document that is entirely valid and quietly runs out on your watch.

Settle it before you sign

A deposit contract commits your money, and a connection is real money. Two things are worth establishing first: the distance from every point of the boundary to the network traced along the roads, and how the land is classified; and whether a basin authority authorisation exists, when it ends, and whether what the property actually drains into matches it.

Send us the address or the cadastral reference and we will check where the plot stands. Juan Antonio Bertomeu Vallés is the lawyer on this work — ICALI 4643, practising since 1991 — from our offices in Dénia and Moraira. Conveyancing starts at 1,600 EUR + VAT: see buying property in Dénia, or expatabogados.com for the firm behind it.

Sources

Procedural history: initial approval at the plenary of 30 January 2025, public exposition, definitive approval at the plenary of 24 April 2025 — Ayuntamiento de Dénia, "Aprovació definitiva de la modificació de l'ordenança de clavegueram i abocaments a la xarxa municipal" — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 (exposition announced in BOP nº 27, 10 February 2025) — 9 May 2025

Entry into force fifteen working days after publication — Same ordinance, disposición final segunda, by reference to arts. 65.2 and 70.2 of Ley 7/1985 — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 — 9 May 2025

Both limbs of the duty; distance counted through public roads and from any point of the plot perimeter; who promotes and who finances in each case; council initiative as a public work at 100 m or more — Same ordinance, art. 11 as modified — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 — 9 May 2025

The only exception: authorisation from the "Organismo de Cuenca" not to connect, valid while the conditions it sets are met; where temporary, on expiry the owner must connect or apply again — Same ordinance, art. 11 in fine — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 — 9 May 2025

Execution orders are drafted by reference to plots with a perimeter point under 100 metres; subsidiary execution at the owners' cost if the order is not complied with — Same ordinance, art. 26 — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 — 9 May 2025

On non-urbanisable land, the council may require connection up to a maximum of 100 metres by public road, at the owners' cost — Same ordinance, art. 29 — BOP Alicante nº 87, inserción 3069/2025 — 9 May 2025

The previous rule: dwellings and business activities less than 100 metres from the network obliged to connect at their own cost — Ordenanza de Alcantarillado y Vertidos a la Red Municipal (2009 text), art. 11 — BOP Alicante nº 110 — 12 June 2009

Discharge to the public hydraulic domain requires authorisation from the basin authority — Texto refundido de la Ley de Aguas; Reglamento del Dominio Público Hidráulico — RDLeg 1/2001; RD 849/1986 — —

That authorisation is not granted where connection to the network is viable — Criterion applied by the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar — chj.es — consulted 2026-07