Learning Spanish in England.

Read about this here.

the link does not seem to be working.

Sorry about that.  It's working now.

I sent the chap an e mail on this link...... Shiv.Malik@sunday-times.co.uk

Get one in quick if you can

Thanks EOS

Looks like we are in the Times on Sunday...I have given an interview today.

Yes many thanks
It will be interesting. I had a long chat and they accessed the SARC website.
Have to wait and see what they do. You never know quite what journalists are going to use or write.

No idea what that last post was about.

I gave an interview and was pleased that someone who represented the oldest newspaper in the world, who had just started to discover the depth of the problem in Spain, was interested enough to put a story together.

The guy, after talking to me was interested enought to think of a serialisation, rather than just a one off story.  He was wanting to send a photographer round, but we are too caught up in a funeral to allow it.

He was also interested in producing a story that was factual, which made me feel pretty good, and listened to the differences in house building in England as opposed to the archaic and corrupt house building system in Spain.

Brianndo,

Yes but tony has already told the Sunday times there is no problem, everything is fine, people are scaremongering, "i met almudena the other day and she said not to panic", san jose are really nice people etc etc

so the sunday times have two messages thanks to I believe anything san jose say (IBASJS), and hence the power of the article could have gone

Hi Alam.

The article started about a different builder, Tony would know this if he had a lengthy conversation.  The reporter has learned of other similar issues around Spain and has decided to report about it.  He wanted the scale of the San Jose problem and the numbers of people (english) affected.  I told him that was his job to research, i dint have accurate information but told him Albatera had a build size of around 1500 properties, el pinet had around 800 and there were others......Santa Anna was around 3000 with many Spanish and other nationalities buying.

I did say i was not able to qualify these numbers and wasnt able to say numbers of deposits, sales etc.  I want him to find that out for us.

The reporter isnt looking for a good news story, he has done some digging and found some large scale problems and he was surprised with the extent of the problem and the amount of English money possibly wasted on Spanish build and officialdom.  He mentioned a lot of instances of people with life savings invested, second mortgages and the like.  He had a lot of those kind of stories.

I said the most difficult thing for me was that a huge part of your life's planning for comfort, progression, enjoyment has been worked for for many many years, has just been wrenched away from you.  I also said the way the Spanish build is organised, you could keep going and going until it just bleeds you dry, so for me its time to walk away, leave them to their archaic ways and get as much money back as i can.

Its a respected paper around the world, if it comes back with a happy article saying everything is fine then maybe you can look at buying more plots!!!!!!

Or getting your money back and looking to sepnd it more wisely???

Which one would you go for?

Hi, is anyone able to scan and post the article in the Sunday Times ?  We live in the middle of nowhere and wont be able to get a copy until very late today (if at all)

I live in Spain and  access the Sunday Times on line 
you could too no need to wait for messages
 www.sundaytimesonline.co.uk

Don't rush out and waste money buying the paper for the one line with SJ in it. Obviously, more importance is put on the "big fish" that is on the way out. 
There you are talking billions and not a few million euros over second home purchasers. the other developer/constructor is a major player in Spain and not just for residential developments.
At the moment, people's few minutes of fame having interviews, in major media in UK, published have not yet arrived.

Hi Briando,
Now you know what my post was about as the paper has been printed, although I thought it was very clear. When ever you give an interview to the press you never quite know what they are going to do with it or how much of it they will use. In the aritcle there was one parragraph mentioning SJ.  So I was not surprised.What i did find intersting was that the other developer had 3.1 Billion Euros of debt. Way higher than SJ/HDT .

All the best
Tony

Hi

I was aware we were not dealing with the local rag here......im sure you now that local rags are selling papers in a confined space and tend to weigh up the perception of a local majority for sales, support advertisers, and then go with whatever truth is left.

Yes.....some of the points i was happy with were....

The interviewer said he was investigating the liquidation of a larger company, i explained the company i was with had applied for voluntary administration and not liquidation....he reported that accurately.

He asked for some background details, which i gave....i wasnt misquoted and when i told him, he got the company name right, (which was more reliable than the Costa Blanca News who are 5 minutes from the issues!).  

There wasnt any flights of fantasy in predicting outcomes or giving false figures, which i told him to research because i didnt have accurate information etc.  Given that it was Friday for the interview and Sunday for the article there wasnt a lot of time to for the chap to research so didnt expect even a mention at this stage really....decent result all in all i thought.

Its a story that he intimated may grow over the coming months and we gave a commitment to stay in touch if any developments came forward worth reporting. (he took me off his junk mail list lol)

Thats pretty much a satisfactory start to a story i think, i was happy anyway.

Cheers


This message was last edited by briando55 on 7/21/2008.

Sunday Times Article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4364177.ece

Steve.

Hi everybody

On monday night at 2000hrs on ITV  on the 28th Jul, a programme called - Tonight - Hoilday Homes
Hard Sell.    Undercover investigation about Brits losing their money, could be interesting, you never
know we could be on it.

Annjoe