# Searching for Suitable Finca Rustica



## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

Hello Everyone
This site is blessed with enormous amount of knowledge beneficial to everybody. I am living in Iran and have decided to move to Spain (retired-63 years old-single) and live there. I am planning to visit Spain in October for probably three weeks. I visited Cordoba and Cãceres for 10 days in March. I found them both a little big cities for me. As 4 out of 10 days were on weekend, I didn’t get a chance to really see some properties. I favor a Finca Rustica (a land and a small house on it?), in mountains. Cold temp. is fine to me, but hot temp. not so. My budget calls for around (say) 35,000 Euros plus fees, etc.. My Spanish is almost OK. I also like to keep horses on property. I welcome all of your adivice. Best of all. Freydoun


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

zarf said:


> Hello Everyone
> This site is blessed with enormous amount of knowledge beneficial to everybody. I am living in Iran and have decided to move to Spain (retired-63 years old-single) and live there. I am planning to visit Spain in October for probably three weeks. I visited Cordoba and Cãceres for 10 days in March. I found them both a little big cities for me. As 4 out of 10 days were on weekend, I didn’t get a chance to really see some properties. I favor a Finca Rustica (a land and a small house on it?), in mountains. Cold temp. is fine to me, but hot temp. not so. My budget calls for around (say) 35,000 Euros plus fees, etc.. My Spanish is almost OK. I also like to keep horses on property. I welcome all of your adivice. Best of all. Freydoun


It depends where you are thinking of looking, there are properties on the market but usually if there is a house on them (liveable that is) your budget won't be enough. That is not to say you won't find something so with this in mind I suggest you start hitting the keyboard and Google search for 'Finca's' in and around the areas you think you might like to settle. 

Whilst the weather here in Catalunya is not as severe as that in the south, we can get a bit scorched and a bit cold in the respective seasons. The chances of finding a property more to your budget possibly exists here in Catalunya though not by much I fear.

With regards keeping horses. To safely keep horses you need a minimum of 1.5 acres per animal of grassland, however, grassland really only exists from my experience in the northern areas of Spain and whilst I have no experience of prices up that way I cannot see it being cheap, good land never is.
You will have to be able to budget for feed which is not cheap over here as the grass rarely is of sufficient quality to provide your horses with enough to live on. 
If you intend to buy horses over here I would suggest you check out Ebay and Segundo Mano as sites which might give you an idea how much even the most ordinary of horses will cost you. If you are wanting pure bred Andalucians well the sky is the limit as they say. 

Saying that, welcome to the site and I hope others will be able to give you further pointers and perhaps better advice.


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## Cazzy (Nov 23, 2008)

If you keep horses in Andalucia you will need an OCA license. You wont get a property round here for that, although I do know of a property that is 50,000 euros that has an OCA license for 5 horses.


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## donz (May 5, 2010)

and to be fair it's hot here in Andalucia for a lot of the year and you favour it being cooler?


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## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

*keeping Horses*

Thank you. Now I know of keeping horses regulations in Spain.


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## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

*Going North*

I will look for land in northern Spain. I was thinking probably Asturias, or somewhere close to that area. I looked at annual temp.s of the northern part of Spain, and it seems cold but not killer cold.


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## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

*Northern Regions*

Your advice worth a million. Thank you. Is there any particular town, or city that would be a good start should I decide to have a visit to Catalunya in the search of a finca rustica in my three weeks plan? Looks like at this point of time, I have to concentrate on northern regions.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

zarf said:


> I will look for land in northern Spain. I was thinking probably Asturias, or somewhere close to that area. I looked at annual temp.s of the northern part of Spain, and it seems cold but not killer cold.


Zarf,
Hi, hope you're enjoying life on the forum.

Look at this
Expat Forum For Expats, For Moving Overseas And For Jobs Abroad - Search Results
which leads you to other threads about the north of Spain, namely Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia. If nothing else they show you how beautiful northern Spain is.

I think you're right about the cold. It's not as cold as the UK for example and it's hotter, or can be, than the UK in the summer.


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

zarf said:


> Your advice worth a million. Thank you. Is there any particular town, or city that would be a good start should I decide to have a visit to Catalunya in the search of a finca rustica in my three weeks plan? Looks like at this point of time, I have to concentrate on northern regions.


The further north you are, the greener it is, however, do not look around Barca unless you can add a few noughts on the end of your budget as property prices around the city are astronimical (in my humble opinion). Try Estartit way if you wish to be near the sea, Girona if you wish to be nearish an airport. However, I advise you to hit Google and research the areas before you decide to visit, this way you will be armed with lots of info and you can discount a great many places without wasting your time looking at them.

Catalunya has some beautiful countryside, however, it also has its fair share of nazi police, (Mossos d'escuadra) who seem to just love to harass foreigners, so forewarned is forearmed with regards them.

Do not be tempted to buy an Almacen which the estate agent will tell you, you can convert into a house, unless there is written permission / full permits signed,. sealed and delivered from the local Ajuntament etc as unauthorised change of use is being stomped on from a great height of late and a few people that I know of have come unstuck. Also just because there is electric and water nearby doesnt mean you can get connected. Basically if your new home has a Cedula you can have electricity / water connected, if it doesnt you can go whistle as far as FECSA the electricity supply people are concerned same with the water folk. I know of 3 families caught out by the electric / water closeby sales pitch and they live off generators and tankered in water because their houses cannot be connected. 
If your new home comes with electric/water check the amount you actually receive, if your property falls under the classification of agricultural land the electricity supply may not be sufficient or indeed regular enough to supply a house, same with the water. Agricultural water is usually dished out x amount of hours per week. If this is the case you will need to build a Balsa to store water for the rest of the week for your use. Bear in mind, Agricultural water is not necessarily fit for humans to drink, but horses will probably be ok.

I live in the Campo, I have solar power and water delivered by truck which I store in a covered Balsa, my sewage goes into a biological tank which I feed with bacteria once a week and to be honest I am perfectly happy. Saying that, Solar panels, batteries etc are not cheap so factor this in if you are looking at properties without power. My Balsa cost around 10,000 euros to build, saying that it is huge, holding 40,000 lites plus, I pay roughly 100 euros a month for 13,000 litres of water. I have a large generator which tops up the batteries when the sun isn't shining, believe it or not it happens as well as runs my washing machine, (solar can't handle it). I use approximately 25 euros of agricultural diesel a month max although it does depend on my wash load and how dull it is.

I hope this info helps.


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## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

You must have a good size land and out of town. I am thinking of about 4000 square meters or less. I put a limit on Euros when purchasing property. I know down the road I will end up paying for all kinds of goodies; phone line, vehicle, furniture etc.. I know I am sailing uncharted waters, but that is life all about. The balsa you have, cleared a puzzle for me. I was eyeing a land near Madrid. The house was a small 25 square meters on it, but it had this big swimming pool looking water reservoir. . Up to now I couldn’t figure out what it was for. Now I know !! Assuming you were living next to a river, would you been able to siphon water off the riverbank and into your tank? Unfortunately intruders are everywhere. We have to put up with them. My experience when facing difficult times is to be patient and maintain low profile until storm passes. Majority of people are good, but few bad apples can screw things up.


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## zarf (Jun 21, 2011)

The link:
Expat 
has a little problem and would not respond. I try to use keywords to get there.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

zarf said:


> The link:
> Expat
> has a little problem and would not respond. I try to use keywords to get there.



I just searched Galicia, Cantabria, Asturias all together


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## JoCatalunya (Mar 16, 2011)

zarf said:


> You must have a good size land and out of town. I am thinking of about 4000 square meters or less. I put a limit on Euros when purchasing property. I know down the road I will end up paying for all kinds of goodies; phone line, vehicle, furniture etc.. I know I am sailing uncharted waters, but that is life all about. The balsa you have, cleared a puzzle for me. I was eyeing a land near Madrid. The house was a small 25 square meters on it, but it had this big swimming pool looking water reservoir. . Up to now I couldn’t figure out what it was for. Now I know !! Assuming you were living next to a river, would you been able to siphon water off the riverbank and into your tank? Unfortunately intruders are everywhere. We have to put up with them. My experience when facing difficult times is to be patient and maintain low profile until storm passes. Majority of people are good, but few bad apples can screw things up.


I have approx 40,000 sq metres and am 1 mile from the nearest village or town as they prefer it to be called.
With regards siphoning off river water, in Catalunya you have to have a licence for this, so I would imagine it would be the same elsewhere in Spain. You could make use of rainwater. My house has water butts strategically placed under the drainpipes etc and I use this to water my garden, saying that I plan to build a second balsa and connect an aquaduct to carry the water to it when it rains, this will be used solely for my garden etc, the balsa I have at present supplies the house etc.
On average a washing machine uses 110 litres of water each time you do a load, sometimes more if you have it on prewash. Flushing a toilet can take upto and including 7.5 litres of water, having a shower, 100 litres of water sometimes more if you are a shower hog, so you can see your daily consumption soon mounts up to more than a bucket or two of water. 
In cool weather, horses will drink about 10-12 gallons (45.4-54.5 litres) per day. During hot weather they drink 20-25 gallons (90.8-113.5 litres) or more per day depending on the heat and humidity. If you are feeding considerable amounts of dry/hard feed you can possibly double these figures. Rainwater/river water is not generally considered drinkable and I personally wouldnt want to bathe in it either. The River Ebro, (the biggest river I believe in Spain) runs through the valley close to my home and it is full of stuff I would rather not have next to or inside my skin and indeed I am not that keen on watering my livestock with it either. But this down solely to my personal preference.


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