Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:15am
Hello Drew, it´s a difficult one, is all I can say. In UK, most of us wouldn´t dream of buying without a survey but in Spain it is a rarity. It is not a rarity for estate agents to say something is not a problem, like a house being illegal, no habitacion certificate, needing a tourist licence etc. All I can say is that if something is particularly bothering you, get it checked out. Where is the water in the hose coming from? Get the estate agent to ask the vendor because it´s coming from somewhere and you will be paying for it. Run all the taps because just having a mixer tap doesn´t guarantee there will be hot water there. Be wary of air fresheners. The waste from both our kitchen sink and outside kitchen simply ended under the driveway. On removing an internal wall we couldn´t believe the mixture of bricks, blocks, stones, rocks, tiles and general rubbish which had been used to build it. Our shower didn´t have a trap so we had an unhindered airflow straight from the old style septic tank. The woodburner was incorrectly installed leading to dangerous fumes being emitted. We had one electrical socket per room and there were junction boxes outside with bare wires buried underground so every time it rained, the electric tripped. Many parts of the property were not showing on the deeds but we insisted this was remedied by the vendor before we proceeded. Make sure the swimming pool is listed as such and not as a water store (balsa).
We bought our property knowing we were going to gut it totally to bring it up to date and install necessities such as safe electrics, insulation, heating and hot water to every tap but even we have been surprised at almost every turn as to how the vendor could have lived in it for over 30 years. Quite how much of this would have shown up in a survey I don´t know so the advice from 271935 is sound.
Finally, do a google search for flooding in the area: Flood-prone areas: …laopiniondemurcia.es/2016/12/20/690x278/cat…