Day 75 - "Property Nightmares!"

Spanish Practices

Today how we lost a cool £49,000 to a Spanish bank, that we will never see again. Property nightmares and how to avoid them, here in Spain.

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Day 75 - Property Nightmares

Friday, Day 75 phase 1 and the blind men are still here, it is confirmed that we will be in Phase 2 by Monday, I we are still a little confused as to what extra benefit there is, we believe that more shops with a bigger floor space can open, but neither of us is absolutely sure.

Martin Myall the Editor of the Seaside Gazette makes a good point about yesterday’s drop in old people claiming their pensions. Normally new pensioners pop off to an office to sign up for their new pension, but at the moment this has to be done online, and as many Spanish pensioners are not internet savvy, they haven’t claimed their pensions yet.

A quite depressing sight greeted us on Facebook yesterday. An ad for the flat we were buying back in 2006 has come up. The bank has finally finished the construction and the flats are for sale from 72 thousand Euros.

We were in the process of buying a flat in a small coastal town not far from here, it was an off plan sale, and the bank had already snaffled 49 thousand pounds worth of our money and then the financial crisis hit and the promoter went bust and the flats lay empty but tantalisingly close to completion.

Never mind, all off plan purchases in Spain are protected by a guarantee. So, we toddled off to the bank to get our money back. The man from the bank he say ‘NO.”

We said that is against the law, the man from the bank he say “Si”

So, can we have our money back, the man from the bank he say “NO”

They said we were welcome to sue the bank for the money, but so far those who have tried, are either seriously out of pocket in legal fees or have got nowhere and received nothing, and the process has taken now 15 years.

So our advice is to NEVER, NEVER, EVER, NEVER buy anything off plan here in Spain, as there is a good chance that the guarantee that they offer you is completely worthless.

Also, a lot of promoters and Estate Agents are very fond of over photo-shopping and over computer generating images. From afar you might think you are buying a property in an upmarket urban district with fully grown palm trees and lush vegetation when in reality the house or flat is down a dusty track next to a dried river bed filled with years of detritus, that will flood in the winter rains.

And as for the lush vegetation and those palm trees, they never get planted.

To be fair not all off plan experiences have been like this and some people have been very happy with their purchases. But our personal advice is NEVER, EVER buy off plan.

We met a couple of guys who bought from an off-plan development, it was a modest house and they had some issues with the roads and services but finally the house was built, and they went to visit the property.

They were so excited at seeing the place one of them said, I must just pop to the loo. He went into his new bathroom, did what he needed to do, while his partner was outside admiring the garden. He flushed the loo and the contents of the bowl was flushed out onto the garden below. No sewerage or drains had been put in!

So Friday has arrived and I can hear the blind men packing up, I am hoping they will show us how the complicated remote control for the blinds operate, I had a quick look and it does look a bit like the control panel of the new spaceX rocket.

Don’t let us put you off your Spanish dream, but it is worth doing that reality check I spoke about the other day.

Yesterday I saw a Facebook post from a couple who are planning to come and live in Spain in a couple of years’ time, they said they were looking for an up to three bedroom house with a swimming pool, her husband had 10 motorcycles he wanted to bring over too, so they also needed some space for those.

They wanted somewhere not out in the sticks and close to the coast. Their budget was £200,000 British pounds. And that is the problem, all those bargain holiday home shows have done Spain a disservice, they like to portray Spain as a place where you can buy cheap property.

That was probably true twenty or more years ago, but for what they wanted to buy, realistically they need a budget of £400,000 British pounds to avoid disappointment.

There is also the cost of changing all the motorcycle licence plates over. We matriculated our car, the process was quite expensive, involved a lot of tooing and froing that our Agent had to do on our behalf, there was an import MOT that had to be done, and a great deal of paperwork, original documents for the car, which luckily we had.

There is a lot to learn, but the rewards are a lifestyle that others dream of, a chance for friends and family to visit - and the enjoyment of family time together, here in Spain.