Spanish living
 

Quick question.

My parents are thinking of emigrating to spain. They are both retired and plan to buy a brand new villa through one of these build agent thingies. I suspect they may have got all enthusiastic and dived right in at the deep end. Having already put their home on the market to go.

I am all for it myself as I am sure it will be a good idea...BUT.....anyone here have any experience about anyone trying the same thing and can offer advice or contats for me or them.

I am just concerned that they go in with their eyes open

Cheers peeps

I have been living and working in Madrid for several months now and it's fantastic...the climate, cost of living, quality of life...I wont be returning to the UK in the long term!

Haven't been too involved in looking for property myself yet but am planning to buy something on the coast, but cannot comment on the does and donts...there are some fantastic properties and lovely areas...and no doubt good estate agents and bad...would recommend they team up with friendly people english or spanish who ca guide them thru all the pitfalls and paperwork...this is what I am doing...

:D

There are quite a lot of sites on the web that can advise you about property buying. The only advice I can give you is related to places I know that would be nice to live - in other words, head south. My favourite part of Spain is Granada province.
As for websites, this should start you off;

http://mortgages-in-spain.com/cgi-bin/index.pl

http://www.escapetospain.co.uk/buying_costs.asp

Good luck

ATTN BOSS RAPTOR
 

Hello (hola) Boss

You may have read my posts recently. The story is as follows...

I have experience in Ops/Airline Representation/Customer Service/BA/and everything else concernibg the day to day running of an airline. I have been looking for a job in MAD for the last week or so. The only problem is that at the moment my Spanish is very limited. Could you please please help me out a little? i.e do you know of any websites where they post jobs in aviation? I am also learning to be a pilot and will hopefully be completing my PPL before I leave for MAD.

I look forward to your reply.

DeeTee - you are very wise to be concerned about your parents` plan to retire to Spain. Many people have gone along this road only to find themselves trapped in a nightmare. Equally for others their dreams are realised.

Some friends of mine retired to Spain around 15 years ago purchasing a yet to be built villa (bungalow) in Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca which seems to be the area that many UK emigrants choose.

They encountered a problem at the outset when the sale of their property in England and the completion of their villa were separated by about 6 months which meant moving in with one of the children and husband for that period. This was because they could not afford to rent a place as all their money was tied up in the new property. As you can imagine this caused some difficulties albeit of a temporary nature.

The villa itself is beautiful with 2 bed-rooms, a large garden and its own swimming pool. They have had 15 great years out there marred, however, by two burglaries.

Because of this they and many other people have steel bars fixed to the outside of all the windows and steel shutters to protect the outside doors. This makes it a little prison-like for my taste not to mention an escape hazard in the event of fire but there we are.

There is an immense amount of building of villas and apartments going on in the Torrevieja area. Indeed the sky-line is littered with giant cranes. Every available space appears to be being covered. This means that the wonderful view of the sea or the mountains to the north-west which may have been what clinched your chosen location may suddenly be hidden behind yet another supermarket.

My friends are now elderly and in poor health and this is a concern. They have had to leave their villa and move to a small apartment because they can no longer manage to look after the garden and swimming pool and can`t really afford to pay anyone to do it all for them. I do not know what facilities exist in Spain for the long-term care of elderly people but I would say that this is something potential emigrants ought to check out because for many this is going to be a one-way ticket. With the massive escalation of property prices in the UK a lot of people would be hard pressed to return to the UK and enjoy the same standard of living they had in Spain.

Anyway enough of my rambling. I wish your parents well in whatever they choose to do.

:) :)

Brimstone,

Thank you very much for your well thought out and considered response. Your well wishes are very much appreciated.

Any chance you could e-mail me so I can ask a couple of questions?

Regards

DeeTee

Welcome back, DeeTee! It looks like the Questions mod wanted to heave you off!

If anyone wants a 'cutout' for emailing to preserve anonimity, send to me.

OK: 2-way comms established via the boac 'dead-letter-box'
Fire away!

Thanks BOAC.

Questions on their way.

:)