My wife`s father has lived out in Spain, on the Costa Blanca for the past 16 years, and we visited him regularly, we had dreams to live out in Spain, the Spanish was freindly and the weather and lifestyle was what we could get use to.
We saw over the years how the Costa Blanca was getting built up, so we started to research other areas, and in particular the Costa Almeria, as we had heard good feed back from people we knew who had holidayed there.
So back at the end of 2005 we dicided that the time was right to find a place in Almeria, to be a holiday home, and then hopefully for us to retire.
I did a lot of rearch on the net of properties and areas within Almeria, looked at all the large agents and went to a few property exhibitions, but didn`t like what we saw.
I found an indepentant property agent and booked a viewing trip with them. This we did in February 2006. We arrieved at Almeria Airport and was met by the agent, this viewing was done on a one to one basis, (as the big name agents take you round in groups). I had my list of properties that I wanted to look at, they told us which ones we could view, as they would not show us the ones that they did not have the paper work for, and that everything was legal.
To cut this part short, they showed us all round the area we was interest in, which was stunning, and the properties, they was very good.
On the final day, I didn`t think we would find the property we was looking for, and there was no pressure from the guy showing us round to buy anythink that we viewed.
The last property we saw was the one, the location was good, it was inland(which we wanted) not far from the nearest town and the beach was about 20 minutes away. We had a pick of 5 plots and we could change the design of the villa to what we wanted, this was all done of the morning before we was due to fly home, at the builders office.
We also opened a bank account, and the went to see a solicitor that was recommended by the agent, but he did state that we could find our own, if we wanted too, but we went for the one he recommended, he was not linked in any way to the builder, (which we found out later was important).
We paid deposit and then 30% of total price once contract was checked by solicitor, and also we had recieved copies of building licences etc..
Our monies that was paid was Bank Guaranteed, (which is very important, as we found out). We signed and everythink was set in motion.
The completion date was April 2007. From the date we signed , the agent gave us updates every 2 months on the progress of work, by visiting the site.
We planned a trip out in October to see how things was going, we visited the site to see plot had been cleared and the foundations laid.
While we was out there, and also information I had read(like the forums on EOS), I found out that there was problems with licences and some builds was illegal in the area our property was in. On relaying this information to the agent, they stated that everthing on our site was fine, as all the paperwork was in order.
January 2008 came , and the last 2 updates I recieved, no progress had been made on our site, other villas had nearly been completed. There were only 14 villas in total being built on the site, but next to ours was a site of 200 modern style villas being contructed, with plans for a golf course near by.
By Febraury I got the solicitor to have a look at the situation, as ther was still no progress, and the completion date was fast approching.
I recieved an e-mail to state that the site of 200 villas was illegal along with the planned golf course, as well as other builds in the area, because our building licence was issued around the same time as the illegal ones the licence was revoked on ours and 2 others, although the rest of villas on our site was ok, because there licence was issued a lot earlier.
Many e-mails was sent and recieved, the solicitor was in contact with the builder, who had many meetings with town hall to sort it out, has the site was legal, but they came back with the same answer, "manana"
to be continued