In Pájara, Fuerteventura, an unusual group met in early February 2026. Mayors of four municipalities, representatives of the Guardia Civil, the Policía Local and the Cabildo's environmental agents, along with the director of the Canarian Nature Protection Agency, Montserrat Ortega, and the island councillor for the environment.

The subject: how to respond to the wave of containers, caravans, prefabricated houses and improvised structures spreading across the rural land of the island.

Ortega was brief and unmistakable: "Primero se avisa, y a la siguiente se sanciona." First a warning, the next time a sanction. The meeting was documented by Fuerteventura Digital in February 2026 (Fuerteventura Digital).

The numbers prove her right. The Agencia Canaria de Protección del Medio Natural — the body that pursues infringements of land law across the archipelago — opened 1,419 cases for illegal construction and unauthorised land use in 2025. That is the highest figure in over two decades.

The Cabildo of Lanzarote alone registered 115 cases concentrated in Haría, Teguise and Tinajo (Lanzarote Ahora), as the Cabildo announced in January 2026.

A new generation of illegal builds

What the agency sees today is no longer the classic concrete black-built house of the early 2000s. Ortega describes a different reality: prefabricated containers, housing modules, "cuartos de aperos" (tool sheds) converted to residential use, illegal subdivisions of protected rural land, and tourist rental in premises never authorised as vacacional.

In a Canarias7 interview in summer 2025, she said that many people act "without knowing the administrative, criminal and civil consequences such actions can have".

A central driver is vacacional renting on suelo rústico. Anyone offering a Casa Rural on rural land without the corresponding reclassification risks an order.

The penalty range runs from 6,000 to 600,000 euros depending on severity — in particularly serious cases up to 300,000 euros plus the obligation to demolish, as the Government of the Canary Islands explicitly clarified in 2025 (ACAPMN).

For containers and modules alone, the agency opened 44 cases in a single 2025 reporting period — 17 in Fuerteventura, 16 in Tenerife, 5 in Lanzarote, 4 in Gran Canaria.

Why the rise now

Three dynamics intersect. The housing crisis pushes people into informal solutions — the container on the family land, the module on the in-laws' finca. Tourist demand makes every free square metre potentially profitable as a vacacional, yoga retreat or surf school.

And the islands are small — what ten years ago went unnoticed in a remote ravine is today seen by drones, satellite imagery and neighbours with smartphones.

Ortega herself remarked in a conversation with El Espejo Canario that the wave began after the pandemic — in sectors where infringements had been falling for years. Today the phenomenon is catching up with the island administrations.

What buyers and owners must check now

Anyone buying an existing property in the Canary Islands — a finca, a renovated stone house, a Casa Rural — must check the licence status of each individual built structure.

A terrace extension, a pool, a guest house in the side building can all be without permission. The responsibility transfers with the ownership. Whoever buys, also buys the case file.

Anyone planning a vacacional rental should check the licence in the Cabildo's official register. A "Casa Rural" sign means nothing. The licence number means everything.

And anyone toying with the idea of starting "with a container on my own land" should know the line from Councillor Manuel Miranda: the typology of a building — module, container, wooden structure — does not change the land status. On suelo rústico the same rules apply as for solid construction.

What the 2026 reform might bring

The reform of the Ley del Suelo has been in parliament since late 2025. The draft foresees some loosening for certain agricultural side uses and, simultaneously, a tightening of sanctions for deliberate infringements. Until it passes, the old framework remains in force. Anyone building or buying should know that.

In Fuerteventura an awareness campaign by Cabildo, police and agency has been running in parallel since February. In a first phase the voluntary removal of containers is invited. Anyone not responding gets the case file.

The case density will keep rising — the agency is increasing staff, drone surveillance is being expanded, and the police are working more closely with the agency. Anyone thinking their container in the ravine won't be noticed is mistaken.