Basque court upholds legality of Xabi Alonso's villa on Igeldo mountain

A ruling in favour of the villa

The Basque high court (TSJPV) has confirmed that the villa Xabi Alonso had built on the Igeldo mountain in San Sebastián complies with planning rules. The judgment, dated 13 October, reverses a 2024 decision that had annulled the building licence. The court's Second Section upheld appeals from Tavaro XXI, the company behind the house, and from the city council, which had both challenged that earlier ruling. The lawyers of Alonso, a former Real Madrid and Real Sociedad player who now coaches Chelsea, had also filed an appeal, according to El Mundo. The villa will not be demolished, as the complainants had requested. According to El Mundo, the coach and his family had not been able to use the house during the two years of litigation.

How the licence was granted

The licence dates from 2018 and was linked to the Goiatz Berri farmhouse in Martutene, which was expropriated and demolished for high-speed rail (TAV) works. Basque planning law allows owners of expropriated buildings to rebuild them elsewhere, and the original owner obtained a licence for a replica at Txalin on Igeldo but never built it. That owner sold the plot and the licence to a second owner, who passed them on in May 2018 to Tavaro XXI. In January 2024 Court No. 3 of San Sebastián ruled that the new house did not reproduce the original building and annulled the licence. Environmental groups, including Haritzalde and Ieltxo Kultur Elkartea, had already asked the council in 2022 for demolition, a halt to the works, annulment of the licences and full restoration of the site.

The court's reasoning

The TSJPV held that a building which had disappeared through expropriation could not be replicated, and that no legal rule required a traditional rural design for its replacement. It concluded that the house met the construction and landscape standards in force.

the work fully complies with the construction and landscape standards required by the current regulatory framework

The court also read the Basque planning law narrowly on appearance, and said it asks new buildings to echo traditional architecture at least in materials, facade composition and building volume.

the Land Law does not impose the requirement of a specific appearance for buildings

On the roof, the 2024 court had said the local ordinances called for pitched roofs, while the house has a flat one. The ruling holds that later rules allow green roofs blended into the landscape, provided a municipal technical report is issued.

Timeline and open points

The sequence runs from the 2018 licence to the 2022 demolition request, the January 2024 annulment and the ruling dated 13 October 2026, which was notified on 21 October.

The associations also argued that the plot carried a 2007 special plan earmarking it for a golf school, a claim El Mundo reports. Under this ruling the villa will not be pulled down, and the judgment can still be challenged by cassation before the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo).