# Almost all cash - property purchase



## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Hi all I recently posted about a property that had only agricultural water, and solar electric, and thanks to you all I swerved that - for the best.


Ok now we have found a very nice property in Valencia for 92,000 euros.

Mains electric 
Mains water
Mains sewage
And Internet if we want
Swimming pool

So this has now ticked almost all our boxes.

I'm very close to booking flights to view the property and the areas surrounding etc.

But before I book is there any information I can find out at this point so I do not waste a trip?

Should I ask about documentation now or let the Lawer deal with it?

We have 60,000 euros and would need to mortgage / loan the rest to purchase.

Any advice would be most welcome 

Cheers 
MD


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## Relyat (Sep 29, 2013)

Ask every question that you can think of now, the answers may prevent an unnecessary flight


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Thanks for the reply,

So how much information can I get out of an estate agent, for example will they have copies of certain paperworks, etc...

Do I simply instruct the lawyer to do all the checking, or can I check anything my end?

Thank you


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## Relyat (Sep 29, 2013)

Here's a few to start you.

Do you know the IBI and basuras figures?
Are all necessary building permissions in place?
Are there any debts against the property?
Is there any urbano fee due?
I assume that it has a certificate of habitation
Is it sold as vacant or is the owner living there at present?
Can you give an idea of what part furnished would include?

A lot depends on the Estate Agent, there are good and bad here. Out of interest, what area of Valencia is it?


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Thank you Relyat,

The area is Lliria, is the area important?

I will be calling the estate agent tomorrow about the property and will be sure to ask those questions. And post back the answers...

Thanks for your help, we are complete novices in this.

Cheers


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## Keithtoon (May 7, 2015)

Great Post!
I am following this one with great interest!
keep up the great work guys
Keith n Macy


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

You can find out some info online through the site goolzoom.es if you know where the property is to begin with.
We became somewhat experts at finding properties on google maps from their listings.

Basically if you can find it go to goolzoom and zoom right in to the house and then choose from the menu on the left "Catastro". That should give you a overlay over the property and you can click on it and it will bring up some info and should have all building like pools and such outlined. It will also tell you if it is on rustic land as that is important if you need a mortgage as some banks wont lend for a rustic property.


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## Relyat (Sep 29, 2013)

Mick D said:


> Thank you Relyat,
> 
> The area is Lliria, is the area important?
> 
> ...


No, not important I was just being nosy!

Lliria is a pleasant little town. Just about everything you would need there and good access to Valencia if you need it


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## peedee (Aug 30, 2015)

Relyat said:


> Here's a few to start you.
> 
> Do you know the IBI and basuras figures?
> Are all necessary building permissions in place?
> ...


As it's Valencia check if it's fully urbanisied or if not, is there is any risk of it being urbanised. The bills associated with this can be massive, 10-40k and not paying is not an option


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

peedee said:


> As it's Valencia check if it's fully urbanisied or if not, is there is any risk of it being urbanised. The bills associated with this can be massive, 10-40k and not paying is not an option


Thanks for the info peedee... But why would it cost money if a property is purchased on rustic land, and then it becomes urban? 

What exactly would you be paying for?


Also 

I phoned them (estate agents) today and they do not have the paperwork for the property the owner has it all.

The lady told me the banks will request the paperwork because we need a small mortgage. Then the solicitors will check everything for me.

Does that sound correct?

Thank you all for the information


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## Relyat (Sep 29, 2013)

It covers such things as pavements, street lighting, properly made and maintained roads etc.

I would expect any half decent agent to either have the paperwork to be able to answer any questions you might have, or to be able to get it from the owner. These are common enquiries to make and are part of your decision making process prior to committing yourself and parting with any money. If it were me, I'd be asking again.


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Thank you Relyat,

I will write them an email tomorrow underlining the points you have made regarding the paperwork in place.

If they cannot produce the information requested I will move on to another.

Thank you


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## paddywhack (Jan 26, 2015)

Hi Mick D,
I can recommend a very good lawyer who specialises in property matters and conveyencing. He is Glyn Moran and you can contact him at GPS Javea Estate Agents | Legal Services
Glyn has been practising in Javea area for approx 15 years and is very well up to date with the Spanish law. I used Glyn for my purchases and found him to be very thorough and efficient.
I do know he deals with clients as far north as Castellon.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Relyat said:


> It covers such things as pavements, street lighting, properly made and maintained roads etc.
> 
> I would expect any half decent agent to either have the paperwork to be able to answer any questions you might have, or to be able to get it from the owner. These are common enquiries to make and are part of your decision making process prior to committing yourself and parting with any money. If it were me, I'd be asking again.


In our experience not a single one of them have any of this info.
This sort of thing creates work you see and none of them are interested in obtaining this unless there is a concrete offer and they actually have to.

That said it is the sellers responsibility to have this in order anyway, again most do not.


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Pazcat said:


> In our experience not a single one of them have any of this info.
> This sort of thing creates work you see and none of them are interested in obtaining this unless there is a concrete offer and they actually have to.
> 
> That said it is the sellers responsibility to have this in order anyway, again most do not.


Cheers for this.

So how did you proceed?

From the photos we have found the perfect house, I know that I need to keep my level head on and not let the want to buy this property run the roost. 

When you purchased your property what was the biggest problems you encountered. 

Any advice would be most grateful!

Thank you paddywhack I will give them a call


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Mick D said:


> Cheers for this.
> 
> So how did you proceed?
> 
> ...


Well I could probably write a book on our house buying adventures and each property offered up differing issues so that makes giving general advice tough but the way we approached it was to start off browsing the web as you do, find properties of interest and even before going to look at the property we would do a basic catastro check like I mentioned earlier using the goolzoom website.

This was an important step because it tells you some basic information about the house and for us the land, we didn't want to buy on rustic land(others may not care but we did at least) and this you can check.
Agents either don't know what the classification is or don't care and will waste your day showing you properties on rustic land even when you ask them not to so at least by checking first it saves a bit of time.

Secondly, before making an offer always ask for a recent copy of the 'Nota Simple' as this contains or should contain lots of info like who the actual owners are and what debts if any are associated with the property and a whole bunch of important stuff.
I would never make an offer until you have seen this document and it will be the first thing your lawyer and bank will ask for. Let them have a look and asses it and if there are no major problems then we would make an offer.

From here on in then we let the lawyer sort it out but it doesn't stop issues popping up in the process whether it is problems on the sellers part, sneaky agents or town halls dragging their feet or worse. 2 houses we started this process on that fell through for various reasons, so even if there are no red lights with the Nota Simple it still doesn't tell the whole story.


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## peedee (Aug 30, 2015)

Mick D said:


> Thanks for the info peedee... But why would it cost money if a property is purchased on rustic land, and then it becomes urban?
> 
> What exactly would you be paying for?
> 
> ...


It the authorities decide the wish to put in street lights / mains drainage / whatever then any houses serviced by that road will pay the cost in full. We are on a fully urbanised section of road but they are urbanising the other end of it. Pavements, road, street lights, mains drainage. Total of no more than 100m of road. The houses (around 6 of them) are paying between 12 and 16000€ each.
Don't let this put you off. If you're looking at properties that are unlikely to be urbanised then no problem. I mention it as something to check as far as possible as I'm guessing buying with a mortgage would mean that a sudden bill for 10K or more may hurt.
As others have said you wont't get much help from many of the agents so get a good lawyer who is working for you and don't pay your initial 3-5000 deposit to the agent until you're sure everything is as OK as you can make it. It can be difficult (impossible) to get that deposit back even if the agent / owner has misled you.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Pazcat said:


> In our experience not a single one of them have any of this info.
> This sort of thing creates work you see and none of them are interested in obtaining this unless there is a concrete offer and they actually have to.
> 
> That said it is the sellers responsibility to have this in order anyway, again most do not.


I would say that our experiences have been very different.

In all cases, the agent had (or got very quickly) copies of the IBI bills and copies of all utility bills.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

snikpoh said:


> I would say that our experiences have been very different.
> 
> In all cases, the agent had (or got very quickly) copies of the IBI bills and copies of all utility bills.


I have never sold a house in Spain, but my husband did have POA for a friend a few years ago which included puttiing his house on the market. The two agents we dealt with both requested a copy of the Nota Simple, IBI bill and most recent utility bills before listing it for sale. Energy certificates weren't a requirement at that time.

If an agent claimed not to have those things I would find it rather suspicious.


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## Mick D (May 26, 2016)

Pazcat said:


> From here on in then we let the lawyer sort it out but it doesn't stop issues popping up in the process whether it is problems on the sellers part, sneaky agents or town halls dragging their feet or worse. 2 houses we started this process on that fell through for various reasons, so even if there are no red lights with the Nota Simple it still doesn't tell the whole story.



Thanks pazcat, 

Sorry to hear you had problems, it sounds like the lawyer did a good job even though it was stressful.

What is the costs to the lawyer when a property does not work out, as I was told is around 1 to 1.5% of the property (costs for the lawyer) when you buy a property.

This was one thing I was a little worried about with regards to buying a property, you need a good lawyer, and obviously it's better to lose money to a lawyer that does a good job in finding the problems than to be left with a useless property.

Cheers all for the information so far very helpful.

I'm just waiting for the agents to get back to me about the paperwork.


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## Relyat (Sep 29, 2013)

For a decent lawyer, you could do worse than Francisco Corona - [email protected]

He acted for me and saved me a world of trouble on another house we looked at. He is based just outside Gandia but covers this area too.


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## paddywhack (Jan 26, 2015)

Hi Mick D,
All I can say is, if you are happy with the property and it fits your requirements then proceed.
Any good lawyer who specialises in conveyencing matters will have the experience to have everything properly checked out before allowing you to complete any purchase.
With Glyn looking after things for me I just left everything in his hands to deal with. I actually used Glyn for two purchases one of them being 9 years ago and the other just 3 years ago.
I certainly have no regrets about using him and have never to date had any probs regarding Water, Electricity etc.
I do know that a quick call to Glyn would answer alot of your questions correctly.


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