THE NEW APARTMENT

It was our first inspection visit to Spain and we were actually going to look at potential properties. It was November 2000 and we were very excited. We had done our homework. We had looked on the Internet to see what type of property was available. We had contacted local estate agents in the western Costa del Sol. We had briefed the agents on the type of property we wished to see. We had set up viewing trips. This was the first step towards realising our dream.

The big agents

Day one and the first agent – a representative of one of the larger estate agents on the coast – arrived to take us on inspections of property. She had been briefed before we arrived. Overall there was not a lot to complain about but we did not really see what we wanted to see. We had asked to see properties with a view and a little bit of land if possible but we were shown new properties that were still under construction. We were shown a very beautiful apartment which did have a spectacular view towards Gibraltar and North Africa but it was £40,000 above our budget. Apparently the owner was keen to sell and would take an offer but would they take an offer £40,000 lower than the asking price? I think not! Not a very successful day but after all, we thought, ‘Tomorrow is another day.’

Day two and the second agent representing an even bigger agency on the coast arrived to take us on a viewing trip in a very large four wheel drive vehicle. This agent must be making money! He had not really done his homework at all despite our brief. He did not even seem to know where he was going in this part of the coast. Most of the properties we saw were totally unsuitable for our needs and did not meet our brief but he did take us to a new development which on first sight met all our requirements.

We were taken round the show apartment, which looked wonderful. We were shown the quality of finish, which looked very high. We took home the lavish brochure showing an artist’s impression of the development which appeared to have the Mediterranean lapping at the foot of the garden – we knew this was not the case since the sea was on the other side of the main road with another development in between, but at that time we could overlook this. We were viewing everything through rose-tinted spectacles.

The following two days were spent with local agents around the Estepona area and while some of the properties could have been suitable there was nothing which really excited us. One local agent did show us a very nice small duplex apartment which he said would be an ideal purchase as a first buy so that we could be on site to find the final property. When this happened we could either treat the first apartment as an investment for holiday rentals or sell it, which would not be too difficult. We did not listen to his advice at that time!

Making the decision

We flew back to the UK, compared all the properties we had seen and decided that while it did not match our original brief we liked the new development we had been shown. Perhaps we were trying to make a decision too quickly.

We decided that there were two properties on the plan which attracted us. Both were large two-bedroom apartments with huge terraces and views from high ground over the entire bay of Estepona all the way to Marbella. Each apartment was described as a garden apartment with a private garden and parking space. The site office had already told us that completion was scheduled for September 2001. This was the perfect time scale for our planned removal to Spain. The agent went around and advised us on which apartment would have the better view and we took a decision to buy one of these apartments. We appeared to have found our ideal apartment: the right accommodation, a huge terrace, a private garden, spectacular views and the right price. We arranged to pay the initial deposit by credit card, so easy to do nowadays.

We then proudly showed friends in the UK the brochure, the floor plans and the descriptions of the apartment. We transferred funds to pay the pre-contract of sale deposit and found ourselves a Spanish lawyer. Everything was going so well and we were very happy with our choice. The legal proceedings went ahead and we arranged to go to Spain in late January 2001 to sign the escritura (the title deed) and take things forward to the next stage.

Legal problems

In our lawyer’s offices late one evening in January we went through the document we were supposed to sign. The apartment had a private garden. It was not on the escritura! Phone call to the developers:

‘Oh, that is a mistake. It should be there.’

The completion date for the property had been quoted as September 2001 but we were now told that completion would be 15 months from the date on which we signed the current document – March 2002! We were not prepared to accept this and felt that we had been deluded. Another call to the developer:

‘We can negotiate late finishing penalty clauses.’

Anyone buying off-plan should do this but many do not.

We were going to pay cash and did not want a mortgage. We then discovered that the costs of building were being underwritten by a large Spanish banking group who were offering guaranteed mortgages on each property. Since we did not want a mortgage we would have to pay the cancellation fee on the agreed mortgage.

No way were we going to pay this! We had never asked for a mortgage in the first place.

And finally, whenever a builder in Spain buys land and then builds on it the value of the land is potentially higher therefore there is a tax, the plusvalia, to be paid on this increased value. The developer wanted us to pay this tax, to which our answer was another resounding ‘No’.

We were desperately unhappy about the way things had gone and we were not prepared to sign any further documents on this property. We felt tricked by the developers and we asked our lawyer to tell the developers that we were canceling the purchase because of misrepresentation by the selling agents. He managed to get our deposit back for us, although this does not happen on every occasion.

Resist buying off-plan

This is a classic example of why I believe you should resist buying off-plan. The apartment we intended to purchase was still unfinished nine months after September 2001. There is in fact a private garden now (the escritura was not wrong), but the spectacular view we would have enjoyed of the bay of Estepona has now been partly blocked by another apartment building directly in front of what had been intended to be our dream Spanish home. This new block was not shown on the original artist’s impression since it has been built by another developer. The view we had hoped to buy has gone for ever. In fact this area has turned into a concrete jungle

We had almost been caught out!

THE BEACH-FRONT APARTMENT

The second development we were shown was right on the beach. The apartments were very pleasant although the density of building was quite high and there was very little privacy from one terrace to another. The warning bells rang immediately: holiday rentals and probably very few long-term residents.

We discovered that this development had been started many years before and the builders had gone bust. It had lain empty for years as a concrete shell until the present developers were able to take over and start the process of completing the urbanisation. This is admirable since it means less unfinished property in the Manilva area but the warning bells started ringing when we wandered around the show apartment, which at first sight was beautiful. Good furnishings, apparently good finish to everything, but the brass door handles were turning green. This suggested a combination of dampness and sea salt and was certainly not a good omen for a lifetime free of problems in a beach-front apartment.

When we went outside the communal gardens were not terribly well looked after and the palm trees showed evidence of being a bit too close to the sea. In fact the communal gardens were really a bit of a disaster.

The entire development was very flat and featureless and was certainly not the sort of place in which we would want to spend the rest of our lives – perhaps the rest of our holidays would be more likely.

I only mention this property briefly to demonstrate the problems of beach-front living.

We rejected this property totally.

THE FINCA IN THE HILLS

The next day we met an estate agent who wanted to show us what he described as a wonderful little finca (farmhouse) in the hills behind Casares. Apparently there was a house, a large plot of land with fruit trees and olives and spectacular views. The price was a bit high but the seller might be open to offers. It sounded just what we might be looking for so off we went to see it.

We met the seller for coffee at a bar on the coast and then we set off following the seller in the estate agent’s car. We climbed up towards Casares and then went beyond the town. So far, so good: the scenery was spectacular and we were climbing higher and higher into the hills. We turned off the main road – this was not a problem yet! The made-up road then turned into a dirt track with a hillside on one side and a sheer drop into the valley on the other side. The seller was driving a four wheel drive car and we were in a conventional car. There reached a point where our estate agent flashed his lights and everyone stopped. He said, I cannot go any further in this car’ so the vendor replied, ‘We are almost there, would you like to walk through the “garden” to the house?’.

The walk through the garden was amazing. We were walking through an ancient olive grove. The ground was almost ankle deep in black olives and the trees were still laden with green olives. We were not walking on grass, we were walking on wild herbs and as we walked the scent was amazing. We reached the finca.

It was tiny. It had three rooms. There was a kitchen/diner three metres square with very basic kitchen equipment. The living room was the same size. To reach the bedroom which was also three metres square you had to cross the terrace from the kitchen or the living room. The rooms did not connect. The vendor then said, ‘Would you like to see the bath house?’ We followed across the terrace and part of the garden to reach the bath house. We found a beautifully appointed bathroom with all mod cons but to get there in the middle of the night you would have to cross the garden and who knows what you might meet there in the dark?

The setting was idyllic. The house was very high up with amazing views of the surrounding mountains. On a clear day you would have a view to Gibraltar and the mountains of North Africa. There was mains electricity since the supply to Casares came across the mountain fairly close by (was it a legal spur?) and the water supply was from a private well. The actual legal boundaries of the property were a bit indistinct but that is quite normal in this part of Spain. If you walked out through the garden on your own there was absolute silence apart from the distant sound of the bells around the necks of goats in the neighbouring valley.

This was a typical example of the type of property where your heart could rule your head. It was totally impractical as it stood but there was a house there and therefore it could be possible to replace it with something more modern. The views were to die for but the approach road was one that you might die on since it was so difficult, and who would visit you for a party? Had we been 20 years younger with a lot of money to redevelop the site this could have been a marvelous purchase. The first expense would have been to have a proper road constructed to gain good access to the property.

For us this finca offered no real development potential so we rejected this property with absolutely no hesitation.

THE VILLA WITH INVESTMENT POTENTIAL

The same agent took us to another house. This time it was a two-storey villa on an urbanisation. It had been converted into two apartments, each with three bedrooms. It had a wonderful garden, a beautiful swimming pool and views down to the sea. The English owners wanted to move further along the coast, which was why they were selling (or so they said). The ground floor apartment was let for holidays and the owners stated that the rental income was very good and was their only source of income. There was also a lot of repeat business.

So far so good. It was expensive but almost within our price range. We would be buying a home and an investment all in one. This property was very tempting. However when we thought about it more carefully we did not really like the idea of the investment property being the ground floor of our own home. We would have to share the swimming pool and we might not even like the tenants.

How lucky we were.

There was open land in front of the property and a field to the side of it. Since we considered buying the property this land has been built on. There is now a new development of small villas which completely block the view to the sea. I doubt if there will be so much repeat business for rentals in the future. The real question that remains is: did the vendors know about the planned development and was that why they were selling? Did they hope that the purchaser would not discover that there was a development planned? The field to the side of the house which apparently had been empty for years is now the site of a development of apartments which will block the view from this house towards Estepona Bay.

Another rejection!

THE VILLAGE HOUSE

The next property we viewed as a potential purchase was described as a village house with potential to create a large family home. This could be just what we were looking for: a home in a real Spanish town with lots of atmosphere. So off we went to see it.

The climb up to the property was quite spectacular but the house had a private driveway leading up to a parking area which was on level ground. We went inside to discover a property which probably had great potential but not for us. The house was actually two houses which had been knocked into one and when I say knocked into one, I mean just that. If there was a wall the owners had demolished it. There were eight rooms including three bathrooms and two kitchens. One room was very proudly shown to us as an alternative sitting room, but when we pulled the curtains at the far end of the room we found an up and over door. It was actually the garage! Because the two houses were not exactly on the same level there were terraces everywhere. The garden to the back sloped so steeply that you could not even have walked down the garden, never mind cultivate it. Potential it had, but not for us. There would be too much work involved in fixing the botched up knocking together of two houses.

Another rejection!

THE COUNTRY PROPERTY

Our estate agent contacted us one day and said she had a property for sale out in the country – the campo. We agreed to see it; after all, it might be just the house we were looking for. Off we went. The property was about 10 miles inland but it was at the end of a pot-holed dirt track. No problem in daylight since you could see the pot holes but driving back after dark could have been a nightmare and it would certainly not have been good for the suspension of any car apart from a very rugged 4x4. In addition, I doubt if many friends would have wanted to visit us in the evening and have to face the return journey in the dark.

The house was in the middle of nowhere with views out over the countryside. There were fields with horses grazing. There were views of the distant hills and mountains. It was amazingly quiet with only the sound of birdsong to break the silence. There were some problems which we could anticipate. It would probably be incredibly hot in the summer months since it was in a valley surrounded by hills. Visiting the supermarket would be a major exercise. There were no immediate neighbours so what would happen if you had an emergency and needed help? Would security be a problem? It would be potentially very dark at night and very remote.

The house itself was beautiful. It was modern and built U-shape around a very nice swimming pool courtyard. There was a modern double garage at the end of a long drive and a large well-stocked garden. Had it been closer to civilisation it would have been our dream home, but would also have been outside our price range.

Once more, a rejection.

THE VILLA WITH A VIEW

We had not given up on the idea of living in a house rather than in an apartment and when we saw a small villa advertised within our price range in an urbanisation close to where we were now living (we had moved to Spain and were now looking for a second property) we just had to see it. We checked it out from the outside first and were bowled over by the potential views. It was right on the edge of a ridge on very high ground with spectacular views over the entire bay of Estepona. Nothing could possibly be built in front of this property since the hillside was too steep. That was an immediate plus. There were steps down to the house from the road and a very large terrace on this level which faced south and west. It looked as if the view from the actual garden would be amazing. It seemed ideal and we wanted to see inside so a viewing was arranged for the next day.

First viewing

Two very excited people met the agent outside the villa the next morning. The door was unlocked and at first sight the house was wonderful. Admittedly, it was to be sold furnished and we hated the furniture. We hated the colour schemes but that would be easy to fix. The kitchen needed to be modernised – not really a problem. A few internal walls needed to be moved around to improve the layout of the house, but everything was possible. The garden was beautiful. Established fruit trees and palms. Terraced paths and garden down to a paved terrace on the edge of the ridge and the views! At this stage we were really excited about this house. The heart was beginning to take over!

Second viewing

We thought about it very carefully and decided that this could probably be the house for us, so we arranged to see it for a second time. On the second occasion we visited this house with friends who were also keen to see it.

While the agent showed our friends around we wandered through the house on our own. Then the problems started to show up and there were quite a few. The storm drain from the road went through a channel just underneath the front terrace. This could potentially be a problem in very heavy rain, particularly if the channel became blocked with plant debris. The terrace could flood.

Then we noticed that there was a gap of about two millimetres under the front door. If the terrace flooded the house could flood, but why was the gap there in the first place? The ground floor apart from the state of decoration was not too much of a problem but when we looked carefully at the top floor bedroom we realised that it had been a roof terrace which had been enclosed - and I mean enclosed. The windows did not open at all. There was a door to a smaller roof terrace but this had no parapet. This room and terrace needed major work to make it both livable and safe.

Finally we had a really good look at the garden and noticed that every major plant had stones around it in the direction of the hillside. Obviously when it rains (and in the Costa del Sol it can rain really hard) there must be a real danger of soil erosion. We then went down to the final paved terrace on the edge of the ridge and noticed that the parapet of the terrace had cracks in it, the paving stones of the terrace were cracked at the edge and there was a gap between the paving and the parapet.

We then realised why we could afford this house. It was sliding off the edge of the ridge, or at least the garden was. This discovery explained the gap under the front door. The ground was dropping.

Since we decided not to buy this property the hillside in front of the house which looked too steep to build on has been blasted with dynamite and a block of flats is currently under construction.