Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

seven-day-weekend

Happy birthday for this week, droopsnout.

droopsnout

Someone's been looking on Facebook!! lol.

Thank you, s-d-w. I get an O-Level this year, so really must go out and celebrate!

slopemaster

droopsnout wrote: »

At present I am back in the UK sorting out Mum's affairs after her death in June. We will be renting out her house, and I'm almost at the end of emptying it.
I wanted to do it myself, to treat her things with respect.........

Me too, droopsnout! You have my sympathy.
Mum died at the end of March and I had to go through 30 tears of stuff.
It's a nightmare, both practically and emotionally, but I felt exactly the same about treating her things with respect.
If I hadn't gone through everything myself, I would never have found the letter my dad sent her when he was in hospital 50 years ago - amongst her sewing things. Or the drawing by my paternal grandfather (who I never met) dated 1890something - amongst some rolls of old wallpaper. You can't put a price on things like that.

We also decided to rent the house out and it's on the market now.
Luckily there's a loft where it was possible to put some of the stuff. But I did trip after trip after trip to Oxfam....

(Anyway, it was well too hot to be in France this summer.)

droopsnout

Yes, well, time to make a start on putting things behind us, I think, though of course we'll never forget. And the weather has warmed up again, and we are due for a whole week of unbroken sunshine!

And on Wednesday I'm going out for a gastronomic feast. Better put a new notch in my belt ... Another one!

droopsnout

Disturbing report from the BBC (though nothing very new) about Andalucian homes which were built "illegally". But is the last man's obviously heartfelt advice actually correct?

We may have some lurkers here thinking about buying in Spain or even Andalucia itself. What would your advice be to them? How can people know for sure that their purchase is never going to be taken away from them due to some administrative bungle or solicitor error?

seven-day-weekend

This is still very common in Andalucia.

My advice would be

a) not to buy a new or off-plan property. An older one (especially in a town or village) stands less chance of being illegal. A very old one, built before the need for Planning Permission, even better (although the 'papers' may not be up-to-date, see my experience below).

b) Do not buy what looks like a nice little white bungalow on its own on a hillside.
Quite often these are 'naves' (agricultural storage buildings), and almost certainly do not have a license for residential use, no matter how many bedrooms and bathrooms the previous owner has added. Some friends of ours are in this position. They bought in good faith. Neither the estate agent nor any of the legal bods felt it necesary to tell them it was illegal to live in it. They are now awaiting their fate, they may have to return it to a nave.

c) Do not use a solicitor recommended by the Estate Agent and preferably not from the area at all, so there is less chance of corruption.

We have fallen foul of this to a certain extent at the moment, with our house sale. Whilst our house is not illegal, the papers and deeds are not up to date and we are having to pay a fortune and take endless time to make them so. This is despite being told by a notary and a solicitor that they were in order when we bought the place. Various former owners have made alterations to the property and not updated the deeds as they should. When the house has sold, they have probably just made an agreement with Pepe or Paco or Juan, that the 'papers' will be deemed OK and slipped him a backhander to say so. This is the way it has worked in rural Andalucia since time immemorial, although things are now slowly dragging themselves into the 21st century and being done properly.

We are now using an English Solicitor who practises in Granada and he is putting our documents right for us, but it could still take several months. Our sale cannot complete until this is done. Luckily the buyer is prepared to wait.

There is no sure way not to fall foul of corruption, but by taking the precautions I have mentioned above, it minimises the risk considerably.

I would also echo the guy in the documentary - if you want to be absolutely sure, rent, don't buy.

droopsnout

Brilliantly helpful answer, and from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Thanks, s-d-w, for taking the time and trouble to provide such a detailed answer. I am sure this will be read avidly by present and future potential purchasers of properties in Andalucia.

seven-day-weekend

Another thing I have read today on an expat forum: If you buy/sell your house for (E.g) 100,000 euros and the tax people say it is worth, in their opinion, 120,000 you can chase you to pay taxes on the difference.

I'm not talking black money here, I'm talking about a legally declared sale price.

Houses are worth what someone will pay. If you stick out for a higher price, you will not get a sale if no-one wants to pay it. This must be why you see so many Spanish-owned houses for sale for years, they will not drop the price, and who can blame them, given the above scenario?

Spain really can behave like a third world dictatorship sometimes.

Oh well, we have accepted a lower price than the valuation for our house. Let's wait and see what happens. What WON't be happening is us paying any more taxes!

ETA: I've thought of another bbit of advice for minimising the risk when buying, have a mortgage from a Spanish bank, even if you repay it straight away. The bank will not release funds unless the paperwork is in order; also you get an official valuation.

seven-day-weekend

UPDATE ON OUR HOUSE SALE:

We signed in front of the notary yesterday for the 'increased size' (we have not increased the size; however it has been extended some time in the dim distant past and it has fallen to us to update the deeds because they were not done at the time) and the 'new works' (some, but not all, of which we have done). This is a step forward as the notary has accepted our new architect's drawings as accurately relecting what is actually there!

The next step is for our adjoining neighbours to be notified and if they have any objection to make it within twenty days. I don't think there will be a problem here (especially as the boundaries have not changed for at least thirty years!). There is a possible fly in the ointment with an absentee owner of the adjoining derelict house, but hopefully it won't be a problem.

I think after the time limit has expired we can have it all finally signed off and the new deeds isued. THEN hopefully the bank will release our buyer's mortgage (although apparently they have to value the property again for some unknown reason :mad:). Then hopefully we can complete the sale. Lawyer is banking on end of January.

If for any reason the sale does not complet,. then we at least will have up to date and correct papers if we manage to get another buyer.

It's costing around 7.5k euros (everything doubled up as it is two houses).:eek:

Keep everything crossed!!

seven-day-weekend

Hi all.

We are returning to the UK on the 10th December on the ferry from Bilbao. Other than holidays, this will be a permanent move.

All the paperwork has been done on the house (we just have to have a twenty working day consultation period). Tomorrow we are going to give our lawyer Power of Attorney to deal with the house sale and sign on our behalf. We can still come and sign ourselves (or one of us can) if we wish, however this frees us up so that we do not have to. Completion is estimated for the end of January.

In case for any reason (such as the Euro collapsing ) the house sale does not complete, we are going to leave it as suitable for a holiday home. We had already agreed to sell it furnished so the new owners will just get bedding and pots and pans as well if it does complete. Hopefully it will!.

Our car has passed its final ITV (MOT) today - we will re-register it onto GB plates when we are in the UK.

We have really enjoyed our time in Spain and are glad we have had this experience, but now it is time to do something else.

I'll still check up on this board though!