After a lifetime's connection with Spain, I'm getting a bit fed up with time-wasters, ie people who waste MY time.
As I get older - I'm 75 now - I get really cross!
[Video courtesy of YouTube]
My time is precious - I don't know how long I have left, with Type 2 diabetes; a suspected bi-polar condition; and too great an affection for beer, I might "snuff it" tomorrow - so people who waste my time are not popular with me.
Who are these time-wasters?
I can place them in four categories:
- Call-centres
- Banks
- Holiday rental companies
- House-buyers
Call-centres / Atencion al cliente
It's hard to decide which are the worst. In both countries you have to wait for ages listening to awful music and, in Spain, frequent advertisements for other services.
Once you get through, the picture is very different.
Spanish call centre staff are not trained to put the customer first and LISTEN. They interrupt, revert to their script and usually know nothing. If you dare to raise your voice, THEY WILL CUT YOU OFF!
[Photo courtesy of Freepik]
UK staff, on the other hand, are impeccably polite, whether they're from Bristol, Edinburgh, Leicester, or Liverpool. They listen patiently while you describe your problem and then try to help you resolve it. If they don't know the answer, they will put you on hold, find out the answer, and come back to you. And they're often up for a bit of chit-chat.
Banks
If you need to speak to a person, you will probably have to queue for ages. If you have a cita previa, no problem, but how do you get a pre-booked appointment? Nobody ever answers the phone line!
I am not impressed with Spanish banks!
[Image courtesy of Freepik]
Holiday rental companies
If you're a holidaymaker, there's no problem. But if you're an owner, the service is terrible.
So you end up wasting loads of time and you get nowhere. The worst by far is booking.com, but AirBnb and VRBO aren't far behind.
TravelNest is a special case. Don't get me started on that company .....!
[Photo courtesy of El Periodico]
House-buyers
I reckon over the years, potential house-purchasers have wasted more of my time than most.
Let me explain.
I have been involved in property sales (and purchases) over more than five decades, both in the UK and in Spain.
In the UK, although gazumping is still rife, I bought wisely, improved the houses and sold on at a profit.
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A semi in Walkden (Greater Manchester), where I cut my DIY teeth; a detached house in Thelwall (Cheshire), which I improved and expanded over 25 years; and a detached Victorian Villa in Latchford (Warrington), which was my "project" post-redundancy and post-divorce.
The sale of that house for a massive profit financed the purchase of my permanent home, a villa with pool and loads of land just outside Ronda. That was three years after I emigrated to Andalucia in 2008. I still live there and am still improving it.
Tunstall Villa, Latchford [On the Market]
Prior to that, my first wife, Jeryl, and I bought two`properties in Ronda in quick succession. We were both still working, me as a schools inspector / adviser and she as a university professor, but we had fallen in love with Ronda in 2000 and bought an apartment with shared pool in 2001 in the delightful Barrio San Francisco, and two years later a falling-down-house nearby.
Piso Blanco, Ronda [Photo: Paul Whitelock]
We did very little to Piso Blanco, but, I renovated Casa Blanca throughout - I was now early-retired (55) - with the help of family, friends and the occasional tradesman.
When Jeryl and I divorced, our daughter Amy had already "flown the nest" and was at university, never to return. Our son Tom was in the VI Form doing his A-Levels. We didn't want to disrupt him any more than we already had by splitting up, so Jeryl and I came to an arrangement: she would keep the house in Thelwall and would give me the two Spanish houses, all our joint savings and a sum of money.
That proved to be a great deal for us both.
***
Back to Tunstall Villa in Latchford. To buy that I had to sell Casa Blanca, my Premium Bonds and haggle hard with the vendor. That was in 2008.
I set to with the renovation work, although by this time I had met Rita in Montejaque, near Ronda. She visited me a few times in Warrington and I showed her some of the best parts of the UK, including London, Chester, Anglesey, North Wales, South Wales, Bristol, Devon, Hastings, Sheffield, York and Hull.
We decided our future was to be together in Spain. So at the end of 2008 I emigrated to live with Rita in her house in Montejaque.
In 2010 we got married in Maulbronn Abbey (Baden-Wuerrtemberg, Germany) and in 2011 I sold all my assets in the UK and we bought Villa Indiana (q.v.)
Rita and Paul get married [Photo: HMR]
***
By 2017, I'd fallen out of love with Piso Blanco in Ronda. It wasn't renting particularly well, so I decided to sell it. There were quite a few time wasters who came to view the apartment, but no sale.
Then a French family that had rented it for two consecutive summers, expressed a strong interest. Despite having done very little to the apartment, apart from fitting a new kitchen and a new boiler and reconfiguring the lounge / dining room, I made a profit!
The day of the signing at the notary, the officials were astonished. No property they had transacted in the preceding three years had made a profit.
I put the money into medium-risk savings bonds through my then bank, Unicaja.
In 2020 came the Coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 was a very bad thing. It killed five friends in Montejaque and nearly did for Rita, my wife.
On a positive note, Covid kick-started my life again. After several years of being depressed, I got a new lease of life, and started working in the garden, making improvements to the house, renovating furniture from the dump, planting crops.
On a visit to Montejaque between lockdowns I spotted a house for sale. Long story short, I drew out my Unicaja bonds and bought it!
I threw myself into the renovation and improvements, sometimes with professional help, and turned it into a rather splendid traditional house with an English influence.
This year I decided to sell it and use the money for travel and getting through my lengthy "bucket list".
You wouldn't believe the number of time-wasters who have viewed Casa Real. Nosey neighbours, inquisitive foreigners, some who "definitely wanted to buy it" and then promptly disappeared from sight.
Casa Real [Photo: AirBnb]
The worst has been an Aussie who lives in Germany, who arranged to view it some months ago, but cancelled. Then he re-surfaced last week. He wanted to view it last weekend, then postponed to Tuesday, then postponed again to Thursday.
At 7.15 am on Thursday he cancelled altogether; he had bought another house the day before.
I was astonished at the rank bad manners of this guy, who clearly was a time-waster of the worst kind. According to my estate agent, this happens all the time and you just have to accept it.
I don't accept it at all.
Final Words
I think I'll keep the house. I really love it! And it's mine.
I decided on how to "reform" it, so I have a strong attraction to it.
I'll have to find the funds for my "bucket list" elsewhere.
Maybe from renting Casa Real ..... ?
View from roof terrace of Casa Real [Photo: Karl Smallman]
© The Curmudgeon (Paul Whitelock)
Photos:
AirBnb, El Periodico, Facebook, Freepik, HMR, Karl Smallman, On the Market, Paul Whitelock, Secret Serrania,YouTube
With thanks to:
A1, Karl Smallman, Rita Whitelock, Sierra Estates, Thom Pearson,
Tags:
A1, AirBnb,bucket list, Banks, Call-centres, Casa Blanca, Casa Real, Casa Rita, Cheshire, El Periodico, Facebook, Freepik, Greater Manchester, HMR, Holiday rental companies, House-buyers, Jeryl, Karl Smallman, Latchford, Montejaque, On the Market, Paul Whitelock, Piso Blanco, Rita, Ronda, Secret Serrania, The Curmudgeon, Thelwall, time-waster, Tunstall Villa, Villa Indiana, Walkden, Warrington, YouTube