Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:13pm
Hello both, we moved over 18 months ago and have never regretted it. Try to learn some Spanish before you come because unless you never venture out from the ex-pat areas it will make life a whole lot easier. There will be a lot of paperwork, which we started out trying to do ourselves and came unstuck, we just had too many other things to adapt to so we found Uma at getlegalinspain.com. She is a lovely Spanish lady who speaks perfect English, based in Torrevieja but travels to you. She can do everything so have a look at her website. She made the appointments, told us the documents needed and either met us there or if we weren´t confident we could find it, she met us somewhere convenient and drove us herself
Wherever you live you will need heating because however sunny it is, it gets cold at night from October to April roughly and Spanish properties are not built for warmth, with little or no insulation. If you are looking at villas check the state of the lower internal walls for signs of damp. Open fires are romantic but dirty, smelly, inconvenient and inefficient. Wood burners are very popular but my personal jury is out on that subject due to the pollution to the environment. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/brits-set-huge-crackdown-polluting-15684746
Never use the Abogado recommended by the estate agent. With a few exceptions, the only thing estate agents are interested in is the sale so don´t rely on them for anything but showing the properties as there is no regulation here and you will be lied to. Habitacion Certificates are really important so don´t put down any money (to the solicitor, not estate agent) until a current one is confirmed.
Loads and loads of all types of properties always available so don´t give in to pressure, like someone else being interested etc.
Do your homework, get the legalities sorted and you can have a beautiful life here.