Getting Help in Spain
January 4th, 2008
1) You find your dream home, a beautiful house with lots of land and solitude. Suddenly, you discover a council-run company establishes itself and puts a water sewage treatment plant right next door to you. How could you resell your property? How could you live next to that smell risking your own health for the next 50 years or so? The dream home has now turned into a nightmare that you are forced to live with.
2) The town hall decides that there needs to be a new road built to divert traffic. Your property lies directly on the site where they intend to put the road. According to the land grab laws, which are still very much enforced, the town hall has the right to take your property and compensate you only the minimal public value.
3) A property owner decides to resell his house and offers you a wonderful deal on the property, stating the reason for the quick sale is because they are returning to the UK to take care of a sick relative. What they didn’t tell you is that they know that in a few months time, there will be a rubbish dump setting up shop next door. You purchase the property and get hit with a nice surprise waking up to the sound of lorries driving past you every morning and dumping rubbish.
Often expats are targeted and fall victim to bad business practices for several reasons. Escrituras or title deeds are sometimes completed hastily in order to close the deal so those who stand to profit from the sale can get paid quickly. Lack of being able to communicate effectively in Spanish and relying on only verbal translations also plays a huge role in the risk factor expats face.
There is a simple solution to protecting yourself and your family from this potentially disastrous situation. Obtain all the town hall planning certificates prior to making your decision. Having said that, however, getting these certificates can prove to be extremely difficult for several reasons. Spanish bureaucracy is complex in nature and soliciting for those certificates is a long and arduous process. One must solicit the town hall that corresponds with where the property is located.
Each town hall has its own set of rules and regulations. If you are considering purchasing a property that lies on the border of two or three municipalities, buyer beware! You would need to obtain town hall certificates from each and every municipality to be certain.
There is no standard procedure that is enforced or used throughout the whole of Spain to obtain these certificates. Each town council appoints a person in charge of overseeing the town planning aspect of governing. It is very important to actually obtain the document and not settle for a verbal go ahead. Not many people provide this type of service.
Trying to find someone to help you can take months. Don’t expect your real estate agent to volunteer this information to you, in fact, they are not obliged to reveal any information to you and their focus is to simply to sell you a property. In all fairness, they may not themselves know. Should you finally be able to obtain a town-planning certificate, it will be in Spanish and due to the number of technical phrases and verbiage, can be difficult to decipher.
Remember, if you do not find out what is being built next door to you, you run the risk of never being able to sell your property. You run the risk of having the value of your property and investments seriously decrease. If you would like more help about obtaining these certificates, contact www.helpcentrespain.com
Full story from roundtownnews.co.uk
