12,697 new homes were declared illegal in the Almanzora Valley in south-east Spain,

12,697 new homes were declared illegal in the Almanzora Valley in south-east Spain, an area popular with holiday-home buyers. Some 920 have been earmarked for demolition, while the remainder may be rezoned, thus allowing them to be declared legal and have utilities connected.

"How many will be made homeless, or lose their life savings, if 920 houses are demolished? Who's going to compensate those who bought in good faith?" asks Maura Hillen, president of Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora No, a local pressure group composed mainly of British residents. Similar groups of disgruntled UK buyers exist across many of Spain's tourist areas.

Now the housing crash has become so much a part of the modern Spanish psyche it has been accorded the ultimate tribute – its own television soap opera.

Crematorio has a storyline that includes unhappy foreign buyers, corrupt councillors, lurid affairs, drugs and violence against a backdrop of the Spanish Costas.

Far-fetched? Not this time. Many believe the fiction is some way behind the fact.