Spain Real Estate News

Spain Home Sales Slump for 10th Straight Month

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:42:06 GMT

Spanish home sales declined in December for a 10th month as the euro area’s fourth-largest economy relapsed into a recession that began in 2008 when a property boom ended.

The number of transactions fell 25.3 percent from a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute in Madrid said in an e-mailed statement today.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is battling to turn around a slump in the real-estate industry as unemployment rose to a 15- year high of 22.9 percent in the last quarter of 2011 and the Bank of Spain sees the economy shrinking 1.5 percent this year.

British expats in Spain face bulldozers once again

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:48:04 GMT

AUAN, 9th February 2012

British expatriates in Albox, a small provincial town in Andalucía, Spain, faced an anxious New Year in 2010 after police served notice that their homes were to be bulldozed after their construction was declared illegal.

Having overturned the demolition orders on the basis that they had not been informed of the proceedings, the couples vowed to fight on. Since then they have engaged in a protracted and expensive court battle to try and defend their homes.

Yesterday, one couple received the devastating news that the courts have again decided that they must face the bulldozers. Their home, in which they have invested their life savings, was constructed with planning permission from the local council in 2002 and possesses all of its necessary paperwork.

Lawyers acting for the regional government (the Junta de Andalucía) successfully argued that the property risked provoking an urban nucleus. The revocation of the building licence was upheld and the retired couple were ordered to pay costs. They are now faced with the prospect of an expensive appeal.

A spokesperson for AUAN, a pressure group made up of mostly British homeowners, responded to this latest ruling saying “Welcome to the surreal world of planning in Andalucía. The regional government claims that its much publicised Decree will grant recognition to illegal buildings in Andalucía but this couple, who have a building license, face demolition”.

The regional government argues that the property runs the risk of creating an urban nucleus. Which urban nucleus are they referring to? Promoters swamped this area with urban settlements and sold houses to unsuspecting Brits whilst the administration fiddled about with its legislation and comprehensively failed to enforce it.”

“Has the Junta de Andalucía learned nothing? Demolitions damage the beleaguered property market and the international reputation of Spain. The response of the regional government to this planning disaster is more tinkering with the laws, creating, in our view, even more confusion, complexity and traps for an unwary purchaser to fall into. Oh, and by the way” the spokesperson concluded “if you want to purchase a house in Andalucía, the Property Register, currently gives this house a clean bill of health”.

Contact: info@almanzora-au.org or 661329919

Failed Spain bank CAM logs 2.7 bn loss in 2011

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:29:29 GMT

Failed Spanish savings bank Caja Mediterraneo announced losses of 2.713 billion euros ($3.6 billion) in 2011, in a financial statement released Wednesday.

The bank known as CAM, formerly Spain's 10th biggest, was taken over by Banco Sabadell as part of a shake-up to stabilise the financial sector which was hit hard by the collapse of a building boom in 2008.

Its earnings figures filed to the Spanish stock market authority on Wednesday night showed it had taken a hit of 2.383 billion euros from the fall in value of its financial assets, leading to a net loss for the year of 2.713 billion.

Spanish banks are lumbered with housing loans that turned bad after the collapse and properties that have lost value.

Read the story at Google.com

OVP directors ordered before Spanish courts

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:33:09 GMT

A YOXALL businessman looks set to be called to appear before courts in Spain over an alleged multi-million pound overseas property scam.

A subpoena is set to be served for Colin Thomas, of Town Hill, to appear in Madrid as a class action lawsuit against Spanish developer Ricardo Miranda Miret continues to rumble on in an effort to recover money on behalf of dozens of Ocean View Properties (OVP) victims.

The criminal claim for fraud and misappropriation of funds was lodged in a Madrid court last year and included Mr Thomas and other directors of his firm.

The prosecuting lawyer is seeking more than £6.5 million in damages for 70 claimants.

The firm took deposits worth around £80,000 each from British investors, but much of the cash disappeared as the homes failed to materialise, it is alleged.

Antonio Flores, the Spanish prosecuting lawyer from Marbella-based firm Lawbird, said: “We have requested that Colin Thomas specifically is summoned and quizzed.

Read the full story at burtonmail.co.uk

Spain's Popular profit slumps on property provisions

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:03:45 GMT

Banco Popular said profit fell by almost one fifth in 2011 as the Spanish bank made 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion) of provisions against bad property loans.

The bank on Wednesday said profit fell 18.7 percent to 479.6 million euros , just above a consensus analyst forecast of 477 million euros.

Spanish banks have hundreds of billions of euros of unsaleable land and property and unrecoverable loans to bankrupt developers sitting on their balance sheets, four years after a housing and construction crash.

Santander feels pain of Spanish property hangover

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:43:52 GMT

Santander, the euro zone's biggest bank, reported a sharp drop in annual profit after it set aside money against foreclosed Spanish property, anticipating government demands that lenders recognise heavy real estate losses.

Santander's grim outlook for the property sector on Tuesday comes a day after data showed Spain's economy looked set to slip into recession after contracting for the first time in two years in the last quarter of 2011.