Building and Contents Insurance

We are now in the position of completing on a property in Duquesa.  The money is almost ready  - all we need now is to transfer it to where - to the Estate Agent's account, our own bank account - the vendors account ???   What is the cheapest option when you do not live in Spain?   Our lawyer has suggested that we open up an account with the same bank as the vendors  but I have heard of the enormous charges the bank imposes .   We have set up an account with Currencies Direct and a few other companies , just to see what are the different costs,  so the Euro situation is catered for but we are unsure what to do next .

Any suggestions are welcomed .  Spanish banks are such a rip off.  If we set up a bank account with the same bank as the vendor would we still have to pay for depositing money into their account.   I know you can haggle about charges but how do you do that when you live in the UK?    Fortunately my husband speaks fluent Spanish which must help.

 

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I use Xe.com for money transfers. They have consistently shown to have better rates than others when I have looked, but they do charge an £8 fee for the transfer and the account takes a couple of days to set up. Today's rate (which is really bad again) is 1.42749460 and you get the same rate whether it is a large amount or a smaller amount. Once sent, the money takes about 5 working days to get to your Spanish account.

Mark

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If you have a currencies account you can forward it to wherever suits you. You will be paying the vendor on completion but usually this is by way of bankers cheques issued by whatever bank. They will change you but you can negotiate this

I am su[rised your lawyer isnt helping you more with this!!! Many buyers transfer the sum into thier lawyers account for him to make the cheques up.

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The lawyer has suggested opening up our own current account in Spain but we have not yet discussed the final handover   Maybe she has not suggested her account as she is not based in Spain .

Yes the rate of the Euro has gone down considerably but there again we got the apartment at what we considered a great price compared with what we would have paid for a much smaller apartment in Arenal Duquesa . Unfortuantly you cannot win them all .  There is never a right time - in fact everyone tells us this is not the right time to buy . AD has p-------------- us about so much that we just gave up on them.  In theory we should have been moving in at this time anyway ????????????????????

Hopefully now I will have a home ( not a holiday flat ) that I am happy to retire to .

Thanks for your coments and Justin thanks for this site.  Your friend Andrew suggested it and it has been so useful  ( altho' my work may not think so )

 

 

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If you are getting a mortgage than you will have to have an account with them anyway, so you may as well open up that one to save having two accounts?

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I'm not getting a Spanish mortgage ,  I am re-mortgaging my home with ING ( offset mortgage and no set up fees ) , seems to be the best about at the moment , that's why we are a bit relucant to open a bank account is Spain but I suppose we need it to pay the bills. 

Anyway our lawyer states today that we should not pay any fees or a very small amount so maybe she is negotiating on our behalf.   Will wait and see.  I think my husband should talk to the bank.

 

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Good luck with it - just ensure you check the small print with ING, on another forum someone said it sounded great until after the fist 3 or 6 months were up then there were all sorts of costs or interest charges hidden in the small print.

Yes you will need a bank account and I think santander have a 0% charges one if there are regular monies going across, Bancaja have just launched something with really low charges as well

Good luck

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Don't depress me - its stressful enough.   It may not be too late but I am not sure if we have access to the ' small print ' yet.    Wil talk to my huisband.

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Good idea, then if there is any small print and its missed - its his fault!

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You will need a bank account here for payment of utilities etc - if you open an account with Halifax UK and also Hispania there are no landing charges for money transfers - think the rate not quite as good as a currency broker but still pretty reasonable - they have a couple of different accounts over here and one that minimises charges with some bolt on goodies (Extra account - translation service, emergnecy service call out) that has a set annual charge used to be 25€ per annum - never bother checking my account with them  - seem to recall that conditions on their standard current account are that as long as there is a minimum balance of 600€ (but check the small print) there are no charges. 

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