Requiring good advise and help - Page 2

Thank you so much,

Every help is very much appreciated.

Kind regards 

G

Hi Gil,

Just to follow up on Lynn's post, there is no legal requirement to pay a "reservation deposit", but many estate agents will pressure you to pay them around €3,000, to remove the property from the market.  If you find yourself in this situation, say you will pay the "fee", as an act of good faith, to your lawyer who will, of course, be able to communicate that to the vendor's lawyer.  Once your lawyer has completed various searches to ensure the property is free of debts and liens (which would otherwise pass to you as the new owner), they will draw up the sales contract when, if you wish to proceed, you will be required to pay a legally binding 10% deposit - again, this should be paid to your lawyer, never an estate agent.  After this deposit is paid, should the sale not proceed to completion, because you change your mind, you will forfeit your 10% deposit.  However, if the vendor changes their mind, they have to pay a penalty to you in the sum of 2 x your deposit.

My in-laws lived on La Marina urbanisation for around 20 years and loved it.  It has a good range of local shops, bars and restaurants, as well as banks, medical centre, pharmacies, communal pools and police station, and a large Saturday market on the commercial centre at the bottom of the urb.  You're also within easy distance of the N332 coast road for the airport, La Marina village and beach, as well as mall shopping at Haberneras (Torrevieja) and Zenia Boulevard (La Zenia).  The urb doesn’t appeal to everyone, because of the large British community who live there, but I like visiting the restaurants, especially in the "Grey area", as they're vibrant all year round.  If you like a good steak, try 'The Grill House' and just around the crescent, I'd recommend visiting 'New Start' estate agents - who sold my in-laws house and were very efficient (but don't bother with the neighbouring agent, Zafira, who are hopeless).

Kind regards, 

Kim

Hello Kim,

Thank you so much - really helpful.

Kind regards 

G

Hi Gill

I recommend Smart Properties 

estate agents in La Marina.

Very professional courteous and help

Spanish and English speakers

Since Brexit there is quite a lot of groundwork to be done so I would strongly advise that you get a solicitor appointed and make sure that the relevant groundwork is completed in advance. As hinted above putting an offer on a property is more or less binding here in Spain (at least binding insofar as you will not recover your deposit) so it is essential that permission to stay in Spain and Finances are sorted first. This will involve multiple visits to Spanish legal entities and a lot of form filling and proving (usually with real paper) that you meet the requirements.

Note that it is quite likely that you will need to take out medical insurance (at least for the first year) unless you can nudge the S1 system along quickly enough. That is quite a considerable expense in its own right.

For information, we used LA solicitors here on the LM urb. They speak English and were helpful if rather picky, but that it probably a good thing. There are other but I do repeat the advice given above not to go with the estate agents choice (I can quote a lot of horror stories around this, mostly occurring when you try to sell) and absolutely do not pay any deposit until your own, trusted, solicitor tells you to go ahead and pay.

You also need to consider, if you are coming longer term, tax and driving licenses as well as medical provision. 

Enjoy your adventure but be prepared for Spanish bureaucracy - it takes a while to get your head around it.

Hi Gil, Due to recent changes due to Brexit I would  also recommend you get your pre purchase paperwork done as soon as you can. I can recommend Newstart Estates,  Allison and her team are very  helpful  and if you  call in I'm sure she would provide you a list of all you require to purchase as well as a list of properties on her books. Best of luck.  

Martyn Perry 

Hi Gil, we have just finalised the purchase of a property in Torrevieja, we used Uma Sanz’s service ‘getlegalinspain’ , they have a Solicitor and they were very good. We felt very strongly that we needed our own solicitor and did not want to rely on the estate agent and their Solicitor and it was a good move. We were very happy with ‘getlegalinspain’.

Good luck, Anna

Gil, are you looking to buy a property with a view to moving to Spain on a permanent basis and taking up residency, or is it to be a second/holiday home?

HelloSteve,

Thank you so much for your reply - really appreciated.

Our plan just now is to find and purchase a property and then during the next year apply for residential status.

I am due to retire this coming April so we thought this approach would ease us into the process with least difficulty. So just now we are trying to contact and appoint a solicitor. Hopefully that will get us to the place of obtaining an NIE number so that we can open a bank account and any other necessary requirements to facilitate making an offer on a property and move forward.

Kind regards

Gil

Hello Anna,

Thank you for your help - greatly appreciated 

Kind regards

Gil