Would you buy properties selected by us?

 We are starting this new venture by which we will be selecting properties for you, under strict controls on legality, technical status and price.

Would you buy again in Spain this way?

Yes I should think so. 

 Thanks for the answer and for the trust!

and would you be the independent lawyer?

Maria

What you are really saying is the spanish legal system at present cannot be trusted, which is a sad indigment on your proffestion.

 Yes, we would be independent lawyers doing conveyancing for our clients.

A sister company will be in charge of finding the best options for those of our clients who are looking for a property.  The best in terms of legality, quality and value. We will not get commissions from vendor of course, we will just be obtaining our conveyancing fee and an adddittional small amount for the finding service.

Having our name involved in this joint venture with this sister company, will make us fully risponsable of providing the customer a fully legal property with a seal of approcal on quality and price ( of course the technical and proice work are made by associated companies)

Faro: Do you see anything uncorrect here? I would love to know...

Perce: I do not understand yopur statement , please explain a bit more ;)

Kindest!

Maria

 It does make me laugh how everyone is an estate agent again.....first the banks (who have no idea idea what they are doing) Now the lawyers!!!!!

I think it was better when it was Taxi Drivers and Bricklayers!!

Would I trust a company (who make so many spelling errors in their post here) with my hard earned money.    Probably not.

QUOTE:-

Yes, we would be independent lawyers doing conveyancing for our clients.

A sister company will be in charge of finding the best options for those of our clients who are looking for a property.  The best in terms of legality, quality and value. We will not get commissions from vendor of course, we will just be obtaining our conveyancing fee and an adddittional small amount for the finding service.

Having our name involved in this joint venture with this sister company, will make us fully risponsable of providing the customer a fully legal property with a seal of approcal on quality and price ( of course the technical and proice work are made by associated companies)

Faro: Do you see anything uncorrect here? I would love to know...

Perce: I do not understand yopur statement , please explain a bit more ;)

Kindest !

Maria

 Apologies for the mistakes. My poor English and typing too fast together: explosive combination!

Maria

Considering we had a similar discussion a week or two ago when I made some comment about lawyers dabbling in real estate and buttering their bread on all sides ......

But no matter how you dress it up and say it's a different legal entlty it still does not make you independent.

Faro: 

What independency do I need when a client of us wants to buy a property in Spain and we decide to provide to them an addittional service by which we look into the market and select the best options? 

How could I damage that buyer if he is the final one who decides what and if he wants to buy and I am just providing to him a seal on:

- Legal safety

- Technical  Quality ( after survey )

- Guarantee of good price ( after approval of property consultant)

Our richness and our center are always our clients´ interests and desires, nothing else than that. We will not be receiving any commission or retribution from the vendor.  We would not be receiving clients/ business from them either. They would not recommend us to any client. 

Our clients come from years of effort and fight for their interests. That is maybe why they trust us and would be happy to have us helping them to buy in Spain.

Where is the conflict of interest? If you see a possible scenario, believe me that I would love you to tell me so I can auto-examinate the project and the passion.

If our work carries on well, it will help to dynamize the real estate market and settlements and refunds will also be positively affected.

Is it not a beautiful project? 

Have I missed something over the past eight years of using this site and got the advice on buying property totally wrong?

The foremost  advice has been to employ an independent lawyer. And by independent  I took it to mean the chosen lawyer must have absolutely no financial or other interest in the property involved.

Maria, I'm sorry but, I fail to see how your proposed venture can be seen to be totally free from a conflict of interests between vendor, lawyer and purchaser.

I know that I am an honest person who has worked and paid my taxes and can be trusted implicitly NOT to steal from or take advantage of another persons innocence or gullibility.  On the other hand I would NOT expect anyone to trust me with their own important matters without  the presence of a fully indemnified third party.

Maria, I wish you all the best with your ' Property finders' business but in my opinion the present compensation system in Spain does not inspire confidence in me to allow you to also  act as my lawyer should I decide to purchase such a property.

Perhaps the solution to the problems with Spain's legal industry would be to ensure all persons carrying out such (legal) work were insured to adequately protect and compensate their clients. 

You will no different to the so called independent lawyers who on CDS resided in the offices of estate agents.

Whether or not it is a direct commission or accrues in another legal entity or "sister company" it's the same thing.

In any of these transactions you can then not claim to be independent.

I would use a lawyer for my property purchase whom I 'felt' I could trust.  Sadly even with recommendations from friends it does not always turn out to be a straightforward transaction as I am sure we all know.

Apart from someone's suggestion that lawyers are Kite Marked in someway, I can still only go on the 'feel' and possible recommendation of others to choose someone.

We are at present in this situation of being first time buyers, and having to do as much work to find a 'good conveyancing lawyer' as we are about organising the rest of our life!

I think I would be inclined to use Maria/other recommended lawyer if I read hundreds of GENUINE testimonials.

Sadly my experience of Criminal Lawyers here in Spain has been appaling to say the least (2 mis-handled my case resulting in a loss for me when the other side/person was convicted of a crime against me!)  The first lawyer was the one chosen by my insurance co - (it was an injuries claim in an RTA) and the second (as I wasn't happy with the first one), was on the list of 'English speaking lawyers' listed by the British Consulate.  IMO neither of them did a good job, as someone said in my 'Conveyancing Lawyers' thread, they were lazy and sloppy and had no interest in me as a client. (They were getting paid no matter the outcome.)

It seems too (also covered somewhere on EOS), taking a lawyer to his/her Colegio for complaints, is not worth the bother.

Until lawyers are fully and properly regulated here, then I think we are just stabbing in the dark.

No offence intended Maria. I am sure I would use you if you were located nearer to my home.

(As for your Q about would I as a prospective client use your companies services if they were recommended by the estate agents I found the property through... Possibly, but it would be a big possible. My very personal opinion is that I would be under the impression you were getting some kind of kick back and it might not be as independent as I hoped.  I know this sounds unfounded, but I am sure I am not alone in this thought.)

Point in case - some of the property websites I have been searching offer a link to their choice of lawyer. But I cannot see anything that reassures me. :(

Sadly, as you know, Maria, many of us lost some or all of our hard-earned savings together with our dreams of a place in Spain because we put our trust in the hands of unscrupulous Estate Agents/Builders/Bankers/Lawyers....or we know someone who did. I applaud your idea of trying to bring new property buyers into Spain by setting up a situation of trust...but for me (and many others) it is too little, too late.

What you are, in fact, telling us is...Spanish property CAN be sold that is well-built, on legal land and by legal title. So why wasn't it always sold this way?  Is it the case that the officials involved in the Spanish property market cannot understand the anger, upset and heartache that has been caused via corruption, not just to many of us 'foreigners' but also to many Spanish families, or is it just that they don't CARE.  Are they hoping that, given time, it will all 'blow over' and the buyers will return as before? Unfortunately, history shows us this is often the case ie; history repeats itself.

Looking through some of the readings on this site and others, it is obvious that few people truly understand just what some people have been through.  I don't blame them. It is hard to comprehend what others have suffered when you haven't suffered the same yourself.  This is true for many situations in life. Some people have lost a few thousand pounds, some have lost tens of thousands, some have lost over a hundred thousand. Some have suffered ill health because of what they've been through.

Friends of ours spent 10 years in Spain building up an honest business, intending to spend the rest of their lives in the country they loved.  It took several greedy Spanish officials (aided and abetted by a couple of British) to 'set up' a situation whereby our friends were 'relieved' of absolutely everything they owned, with the help of a Spanish lawyer and a Spanish Judge (Hard to believe but true).  When our friends tried to protest the 'robbery' and get back what was legally theirs, the death threats against them became unbearable and they fled the country to a place of safety with nothing but the few clothes they could carry. They are now pursuing their case through the European Courts of Law whilst working hard to set up a new life for themselves.

So, no, Maria.  I won't be buying a property in Spain, however (seemingly) safe it is, even though I love your country and its Spanish people and I will be spending more time there. Our friends were once told by a local Spaniard 'The foreigners (us) can spend their money on a Spanish house if they wish but they will never truly own one.  Spanish property belongs to the Spanish'. It appears this was truly meant.

 I fully understand your statements to which I agree. THe formula by which you found your lawyer in the past made them lack independency:  as they were receiving hundreds of business through the agents, they would never upset them by affirming and communicating cancellation rights to the commun client. The formula was very frequently: foreign agent and spanish lawyer.

What we are proposing is just a service some clients have asked us about: to find a property for them.

They show their preferences, we do de search among fully legal, quality and balanced priced properties ( all carried out by independent proffessionals), show the possibilities to them, and then, they decide. Some properties will be banks properties, some other ones will be developers ones, and some other will be offered by an estate agent even from individual people.

Our fees will be, a small amount for the finding effort ( rated by hour or through fixed fee depending on client´s preference) and of course the conveyancing fee for the legal work. We will not be a estate agent, just will be adding a service for property finding to our services.

Again, I cannot see ourselves in the same position as those lawyers sitting in the same stand as estate agents. Even when initally I admitt it could look like.

For putting it as a clear example: when finding and conveyancing properties for our clients, we would act as we were doing it for ourselves. Same as when we do litigation work. Just one interest at heart: the client´s.

Everyone is after the big real estate commissions and he who has the buyer is king.

Like I said before you will be dabbling in real estate.

I fail to see the difference between the cosy relationship that existed in the past with agents & lawyers sharing office space and attending overseas exhibitions and then claiming to be independent lawyers!!

By all means conduct proper due diligence and offer a thorough conveyancing service but don't go on the hunt for commisisons.

Now we have buttered the bread let's pile on the maralade!

Next the mortgage service and a 50% split on opening commisison.

and of course let's not forget the commission to be earned from the FOREX introduction - that's also a nice little earner!

By the way anyone who used the FOREX company introduced by the agent then that agent still continues to earn commission on each and every transfer!

I know every grubby deal and the ins and outs of commisison splits and confidential arrangements etc and every deal is at the expense of the innocent buyer!

 Faro:

As said, we  will not be  getting commissions from ANYONE. Just offering a service to our clients, who will be freely  paying us to find a good property ( with legal, quality and price revised)  for them and do the conveyancing work.

Again.... where is the lak of independency or the conflict of interest? We will always be at our clients´side. As always.

Cheers! :)

MAria

Is it a spanish thing were its you scatch i scatch yours, near me you have the bar owners kissing the backside of the keyholders/cleaners i sat in a bar the other week and the cleaner was telling the bar owner how he  will tell  his renters where and how good his  bar is, in exchange for free food & drink. How sad.. It seems all walks of life want something for nothing.

newworld, isn't that just a form of bartering though?  It's certainly not unique to Spain.

Even when I worked as an engineer in the Automotive industry in the UK, a huge amount of business was carried out like this and this was multi-million pound business.

I am happy to promote the services of a friend if then in turn they will promote me to their clients.  Especially in tough times like these where eveyone is cutting back on marketing costs. 

There are a huge amount of business networks around (I don't personally attend them) but they all work along these same principles.  Think of the BNI networks around the world.

This is nothing new.

I agree, the way things were done here during the boom time was wrong and caused an astonishing level of problems and loss of millions, the effects of which will be felt for many years to come...

I don't think we should look at new ideas and compare them to the past.  They have to be considered on their own merits.

If Maria wants to help her clients find a property, and she earns her conveyancing fee out of that, then I can't see the problem in that.  She isn't planning on getting referral commissions, that's not how she works.

She's not an estate agent recommending a lawyer, she is a lawyer that will recommend properties which she is 100% confident will not give their owners any legal headaches in the future.  She is saying that she will charge for this service not take a commission on the sale.  It will be interesting to see how it goes, although I think it's going to be a huge amount of effort.

Yes, normally no one does anything here without getting their standard "10%", and Faro is correct on all of his comments....but we're not all like that.

Justin