The Spanish government is set to embark on an ambitious €5 billion (£3.5 billion) plan to crack down on illegal construction on Iberian coast-lines.

A cleaning up of regulations could mean good news for property seekers in Spain – with clarity and reliability likely to be restored to Spanish housing purchases.

Recently problems have emerged with people led to invest in property whose construction had flouted development laws, making the reinforcement of regulations across 776km of southern coastlines an ambitious but potentially very worthwhile task.

The plans unveiled to the Spanish cabinet by environment minister Cristina Narbona involved a new level of cooperation between local authorities and central institutions, in order to investigate construction on public land.

Looking likely to formally approve the legislation, the Spanish government is set to proceed with caution, hoping to negotiate with homeowners over contentious properties rather than taking extreme measures.

Recent changes have already made the criteria for building permits more stringent than before on the Costa del Sol and elsewhere, so a new enforcement of regulations could add another boost to the legal reliability of Spanish property.