# Solicitors & Estate Agents



## speedking998877 (Jul 9, 2015)

Hi All

I am looking at purchasing a new build apartment.

Can someone recommend a decent solicitor.
Please advise if you can also recommend any good estate agents.

Looking on right move it seems a lot of the same property's are listed with different estate agents.

I am looking to use the property for holidays and maybe rental I would prefer new with parking space.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

speedking998877 said:


> Hi All
> 
> I am looking at purchasing a new build apartment.
> 
> ...


where abouts are you looking??

Jo xxx


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## speedking998877 (Jul 9, 2015)

Hi sorry 

Costa blanca

Torrevieca villa Martin areas la mata 


Thanks


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

speedking998877 said:


> Hi All
> 
> I am looking at purchasing a new build apartment.
> 
> ...


I have recently used the services of Oscar Ricor, of Ricor Abogados, who have offices in Alicante and Torrevieja. Fast, efficient and reasonably priced. He speaks very good English. His web address is: www.http://ricorabogados.com/
Email: [email protected]


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## speedking998877 (Jul 9, 2015)

Thanks for your reply I'll drop him an email

Also can you trust estate agents did you purchase through one

Thanks


Graham


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

speedking998877 said:


> Thanks for your reply I'll drop him an email
> 
> Also can you trust estate agents did you purchase through one
> 
> ...


Ours is a complicated story. We originally made an offer through an estate agent but the sale fell through. We later bought the same house privately and there was, as you can imagine, a little bit of a dispute about the estate agent´s commission! Can you trust an estate agent? The short answer is NO! As they say around here, "How do you know when an estate agent is lying? His lips move! The old ones are the best!


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## Sunny Jim1 (Jan 20, 2015)

Hi Speedking,
from my own personal experience I would recommend Glyn Moran. I know he has clients in your area and very reasonably priced if you want a further quotation - GPS Javea Estate Agent | One Stop Property Shop Costa Blanca


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Sunny Jim1 said:


> Hi Speedking,
> from my own personal experience I would recommend Glyn Moran. I know he has clients in your area and very reasonably priced if you want a further quotation - GPS Javea Estate Agent | One Stop Property Shop Costa Blanca


Why would he want a quotation? He is buying not selling! You don´t pay an estate agent when you are buying a property.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Sunny Jim1 said:


> Hi Speedking,
> from my own personal experience I would recommend Glyn Moran. I know he has clients in your area and very reasonably priced if you want a further quotation - GPS Javea Estate Agent | One Stop Property Shop Costa Blanca


Afaik he isn't a property agent, so why the link?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

The Skipper said:


> Why would he want a quotation? He is buying not selling! You don´t pay an estate agent when you are buying a property.


He's a lawyer, not an agent, so I'm as confused as you as to the agent link


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## Sunny Jim1 (Jan 20, 2015)

The Skipper said:


> Why would he want a quotation? He is buying not selling! You don´t pay an estate agent when you are buying a property.


Hi Skipper,
I think you will find Glyn Moran at GPS Javea is a lawyer with 14years experience working in this field on the Costa Blanca. I know from my own experiences that he would be happy to quote for any legal services required as he did for me when purchasing. There were no hidden suprises with the final invoice.


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## makeitrain (Jul 14, 2015)

The Skipper said:


> Ours is a complicated story. We originally made an offer through an estate agent but the sale fell through. We later bought the same house privately and there was, as you can imagine, a little bit of a dispute about the estate agent´s commission! Can you trust an estate agent? The short answer is NO! As they say around here, "How do you know when an estate agent is lying? His lips move! The old ones are the best!


Nothing like generalising eh!! I assume as you are able to offer such expert! advice that you have personal experience of every single estate agent in Spain?


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Not far from the truth though, we encountered some mystifyingly terrible agents in our house search. I actually feel a little sorry for those sellers using those agents.
At the same time you don't really hear about the other half of them who are alright.

Either way the good news is once you have a good lawyer it tends to sort the wheat from the chaff.


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## samthemainman (Aug 15, 2012)

The Skipper said:


> Why would he want a quotation? He is buying not selling! You don´t pay an estate agent when you are buying a property.


Actually this is not true for the large majority of estate agents in Spain. Rightly or wrongly (and often going against the law which states only the vendor should pay commission) - the agent very often splits the commission between buyer and seller. In Valencia city for example this ranges from 1.5-3%. These are not estate agents catering to expats buying off plan - they are regular estate agents - some are independent and some are chains of established estate agents. I have spoken to around 30 of them over the past year in my search for a property. Some were nice, some were professional, some were cowboys, but in no circumstances were they ever worth 5-6K of my well earned money as a buyer. I hear of some agents on the costas selling to naive Brits, Germans and Dutch people and charging up to 10% for showing them around and shuffling papers. Very few of the ones I've seen were prepared for my scheduled visits, knew the answers to FAQs like 'Why is the seller selling?', 'What are the monthly rates?', or were proactive in finding me places. I did all the legwork on fotocasa/idealista and frankly they just let me in to see the properties.

In the end I bought privately which is a bit more work - to be fair the estate agents do help with some of the paper work and in lining things up- but if you get a good lawyer they will at least act in your interest rather an agent who may be paid commission by both parties - where nobody wins. 

Estate agents are woefully under-regulated in Spain and just like many of the parties involved - many of them (though I am sure not all) actively encouraged the national addiction known as 'Dinero B' - which is another topic altogether. Thankfully we managed to avoid getting into that vicious cycle of nonsense - which granted, is as much a fault of tax-dodging sellers and buyers as it is for agents.

I'm sure there are many dedicated, professional estate agents who provide exceptional value for money for the buyer - or if they do not charge commission from both parties are good value for the seller too. Unfortunately I have yet to meet them.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

samthemainman said:


> Very few of the ones I've seen were prepared for my scheduled visits, knew the answers to FAQs like 'Why is the seller selling?', 'What are the monthly rates?', or were proactive in finding me places. I did all the legwork on fotocasa/idealista and frankly they just let me in to see the places.


I agree a lot don't seem worth the hefty commissions charged to vendors (I haven't heard of any buyers in my area being asked to pay commission). When we were looking, one agent took us to a house but had no keys to let us in - did they think someone would be likely to buy just by looking at the outside of a house?

I would certainly expect them to have answers to questions such as how much is the IBI bill. However, I wouldn't even bother asking "why is the seller selliing?" - because let's face it, if there is some kind of problem with the house, or they have terrible neighbours, who is going to say so to a prospective buyer?

I'm also bemused by those foreign property shows I see on tv where the presenter says "the property is on the market for xxxx but I've been assured the vendor would accept xxxxx". If I were selling my house, which I'm not, I wouldn't be wanting the agent to volunteer the fact that I'd accept so much less. Surely they should wait for the buyer to make an offer and then ask the vendor if they will accept it or not?


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Thankfully no agent tried to claim a fee from us when buying, I would of told them to jump if they had.

It is kind of sad really, I wonder how many houses listed actually have their licence of first/second occupation in place?
Certainly none of the ones we followed up on had one as they expire and you can't sell a house without it, it should be up to the agents(well owners really) to vet the properties before they even get listed but they don't. And that is including the good agents as it seems to be the done thing in Spain.

One agents refusal to deal with any of the questions asked like power supply, land classification, nota simple, etc... quite possibly cost him a sale. Most of the info we found out anyway after the visit.

We found a lovely house on a hill, it was quite obvious that it was rustic and probably needed solar power which for the house, water trucked in and the rest but he refused to give us any info on it and got aggressive towards us when pushed.

Lovely house though, hope it doesn't sell.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

makeitrain said:


> Nothing like generalising eh!! I assume as you are able to offer such expert! advice that you have personal experience of every single estate agent in Spain?


Yes, you are right, there are probably one or two honest estate agents, and I think one that we met seemed ok (although we didn´t put him to the test as he didn´t have any property we liked). The rest told blatant porkies! You don´t have to have personal experience of every estate agent to form an opinion and there is no shortage of anecdotal evidence from expats who trusted them and lived to regret it.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

samthemainman said:


> Actually this is not true for the large majority of estate agents in Spain. Rightly or wrongly (and often going against the law which states only the vendor should pay commission) - the agent very often splits the commission between buyer and seller. In Valencia city for example this ranges from 1.5-3%. These are not estate agents catering to expats buying off plan - they are regular estate agents - some are independent and some are chains of established estate agents. I have spoken to around 30 of them over the past year in my search for a property. Some were nice, some were professional, some were cowboys, but in no circumstances were they ever worth 5-6K of my well earned money as a buyer. I hear of some agents on the costas selling to naive Brits, Germans and Dutch people and charging up to 10% for showing them around and shuffling papers. Very few of the ones I've seen were prepared for my scheduled visits, knew the answers to FAQs like 'Why is the seller selling?', 'What are the monthly rates?', or were proactive in finding me places. I did all the legwork on fotocasa/idealista and frankly they just let me in to see the properties.
> 
> In the end I bought privately which is a bit more work - to be fair the estate agents do help with some of the paper work and in lining things up- but if you get a good lawyer they will at least act in your interest rather an agent who may be paid commission by both parties - where nobody wins.
> 
> ...


Yes, we did meet one agent who told us that we would have to pay 50% of his commission if we bought through him. Upon hearing that we cancelled our appointment and viewed the same house via another agent who didn´t expect the buyer to pay a contribution. The original agent went out of business the following year! In the current buyer´s market who would be mad enough to pay an estate agent to sell you a house? By the way, like you, we ended up buying privately although the agent who had been marketing our house tried without success to claim commission.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The Skipper said:


> Yes, you are right, there are probably one or two honest estate agents, and I think one that we met seemed ok (although we didn´t put him to the test as he didn´t have any property we liked). The rest told blatant porkies! You don´t have to have personal experience of every estate agent to form an opinion and there is no shortage of anecdotal evidence from expats who trusted them and lived to regret it.


Friends of ours recently signed a reservation contract to buy a house, having been assured by the agent that all the paperwork was in order and there were no debts attached to the property (the latter statement was written into the contract). This contract committed them to paying the 10% deposit within 7 days and completion withiin 60 days.

We were horrified when they told us this and advised them to consult a lawyer urgently. When they did so they were advised (within a couple of days) that there was a mortgage on the property, and it was only registered as a single storey dwelling although it is actually a 3 storey house, having been renovated and extended.

So much for the agent's reassurances.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

That is a pretty standard contract though, why on Earth sellers who know what is wrong with the property agree to sign such things is beyond me because with such a contract in place the buyer would be entitled to getting twice their deposit back.
How that would go down too remains to be seen, we had similar issues with our sellers representative who drew what should of been a months worth of paperwork into 4 months. We even gave a contract extension because two days before the notary this woman had not even filed the paper work needed and eventually when it was filed the registrador decided he wasn't going to approve it because he was applying inheritance laws that don't come into place until August.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Pazcat said:


> That is a pretty standard contract though, why on Earth sellers who know what is wrong with the property agree to sign such things is beyond me because with such a contract in place the buyer would be entitled to getting twice their deposit back.
> How that would go down too remains to be seen, we had similar issues with our sellers representative who drew what should of been a months worth of paperwork into 4 months. We even gave a contract extension because two days before the notary this woman had not even filed the paper work needed and eventually when it was filed the registrador decided he wasn't going to approve it because he was applying inheritance laws that don't come into place until August.


Have you ever heard of anyone getting back their deposit, let alone twice their deposit? I´ve certainly heard of people trying and getting nowhere! As a matter of interest, we wouldn´t pay a deposit on our house because we didn´t trust the vendors. We paid the full agreed price at the Notary´s office. We were right not to trust them because they arranged to visit us at the house the day after completion, to explain all the ins and outs of the place, but didn´t turn up and their phones weren´t answered. Haven´t seen or heard from them since then!


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

I have no idea how people would go about it, I suspect it's more common that people would get their deposit back as a minimum as it should be held in a separate account anyway. That said many don't do that and it's quite clear that vendors use the deposit money for the legalisation process where that is called for.
Possibly they may even reach an agreement for a reduced price on the house.

Still if you go about things correctly you should at least be able to recover your deposit back which you would settle for.
And there isn't much point in paying a deposit but I guess people like to do that, we did on the house we brought but not the one before that which we wanted to buy and didn't and that was justified in the end.


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## samthemainman (Aug 15, 2012)

Normally the deposit is good if you're trying to arrange a mortgage - mortgage companies charge for valuation and assessments and it's not cheap. If a buyer forks out for all that palaver and then the seller pulls out, you're stuffed....


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## Isobella (Oct 16, 2014)

I would never hand over a deposit to a vendor. If pushed tell them your Lawyer will hold it. I knew someone who paid 10% to an old Spanish woman. She then decided not to sell as she was happy to keep the deposit. Cost them a few thousand for the court case. All that happened is that an embargo was put on her house. Heard of a few similar cases.


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