An Austrian mother and her daughter have been arrested by police after trying to stop developers building holiday apartments on their land Spain.
The Wesenauer family purchased their Campoamor finca in 1996, believing they owned all the surrounding land under the original title deeds.
However, four years later they were told they could lose much of their land under Valencia's LRAU planning laws.
The legislation allowed builders to take land for the development of tourism if this were in the “community interest”.
The European Union subsequently ruled that the planning laws were illegal, forcing the local government to withdraw the legislation.
Despite this, developers have continued with their redevelopment plans on the Wesenauer's land, leading the family to claim they are “victims of an extinct law”.
Nine homes and a number of swimming pools are now being built in the former garden.
Kimberley Wesenauer and her daughter Love staged a desperate last-ditch effort to stop the builders on Monday.
Mrs Wesenauer fell to the ground screaming as her daughter tried to crawl under one of the excavators.
Both were arrested and handcuffed by police at the scene before being taken to the Guardia Civil barracks in Pilar de la Horadada.
The Valencian government passed the LRAU planning legislation in 1994, which critics later dubbed the 'land grab law'.
The idea behind the new legislation was to accelerate urban Development. However, the law was poorly drafted, allowing abuse by unscrupulous developers.
The amended planning laws allowed developers to request land be reclassified from rural to urban without the consent of owners.
Many property owners were forced to sell under compulsory purchase orders at prices far below commercial values.
To make matters worse, some property owners then received huge bills for the development.
The Wesenauers sent a petition to the Environmental prosecutor in the early hours of Monday and awaiting a response.