Madrid’s Supreme Court of Justice agreed to reopen the case into whether the compensation paid by the City Council to landowners near the Civitas Metropolitano stadium is appropriate. The dispute concerns land that now hosts Atletico Madrid’s home ground. In a decision dated November 6, first reported by El Periódico de España from the Prensa Ibérica group, the court annulled the earlier ruling issued by Instructional Court No. 26 and ordered a retroactive examination of the proceedings. The presiding judge may continue to evaluate the arguments presented.
This stance followed a finding that several quoted principles, rules, and constitutional jurisprudence relied upon by the previous ruling were unlawful, as explained in the Madrid High Court’s Disputed Administrative Chamber Second Section decision. The body concluded that the process was flawed, citing an unexpected contribution as the basis for the previous judgment.
The legal challenge against the Madrid City Council by landowners who own a portion of the Civitas Metropolitano site began in 2019, two years after Madrid’s official landmark arrival for Atlético de Madrid. The case appeared to fade at the start of the prior year when Instructional Court No. 26 dismissed it.
Compensation is paid by La Peineta, not the Metropolitano
The plaintiffs have argued that the land should be returned or, at minimum, re-evaluated, contending that compensation for expropriation was based on plans to build a public stadium. The stadium project, opened in 1994 and operated until 2005, was halted that year to allow for studies linked to a bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.
When that bid did not advance, the stadium and the adjacent plots were handed over to Atlético de Madrid for the construction of a new stadium on the La Peineta site, with the subsequent development of a broader sports city for the club.
The landowners claim that an eight-year deadline was not respected for transferring ownership to a private entity, and therefore the expropriation compensation should be recalculated and potentially expanded. If not, they argue, the possibility of returning their property should at least be considered. (Citation: El Confidencial, 2019 report.)
The core argument rests on the fact that the public operation of the stadium began in 1994 without formal expropriation procedures being fully completed. Madrid’s city government began preparatory steps for their Olympic bid, and the first agreement between the club and the council was signed in December 2008, meaning the eight-year period for private transfer would not have elapsed before the handover.
Google searches are useless
The High Court of Justice of Madrid did not analyze the substantive issues again in the referenced decision. Instead, it deemed that the reasons for rejecting the claim were not sufficiently grounded in law. In supporting its stance on why the calculation of days exceeded the legal window, Instructional Court No. 26 of Madrid relied on a “transcription of the findings through search tools.” It noted that searches like Google results and the “link” on the Madrid Athletics Federation site, or a page’s paragraph about the stadium’s opening and activities, would not trigger a formal legal basis for TSJM. What mattered was that the demands of the expropriated parties be rejected.
While some owners seek recognition of the new appraisal right before discussing the final amount, others, as reported by El Confidencial, preferred to pursue an 8 million euro claim as of 2019 rather than the 2 million euro compensation they received at that time.