Late July 2009.
Back in the bosom of our concrete jungle the serious work began, hour after tortuous hour; where we had been, what we had seen, what would work, what it would cost. I´m sure you get the picture. Luckily being handy with a spreadsheet helped, reams of paper filled with pros and cons, prices, pictures, all for dissection across the breakfast, lunch and diner table. Gradually one place began to emerge as the front runner, a small badly (but not irretrievable y so) reformed cortijo just outside of Albox. The price was right, the location was perfect and the work was manageable. So in went the offer and back we sat. Job Done! Wrong! Job not even half started, the can had just started to open and the worms began to see the light of day.
The first hint of this was when a copy of the escritura arrived, the first thing I noticed was the size of the property, where it should have said plot 200m2+ and house 120m2 it said 40 and 55, something was not quite right here. It did contain, however, two of the most vital pieces of information the prospective buy should acquire, the full address and the catastral register reference. Using these and two of the most important websites known to property purchasers (Oficina Virtual del Catastro and Goolzoom) I pulled up the official land registry information on the place and guess what, the can opened a little further. Not only was the size of the property exactly as described in the escritura, as opposed to what the agent and sellers were saying, but whilst the ground floor was classed as a vivienda the first floor of the house was defined as an almacen and as such could not legally be used as living space (bang went the plans for another bathroom, bedroom and roof terrace, and a big thanks to Lawbird on Eye on Spain for the heads up). Were we being sold a pup?
The icing on the cake came with a call from the agent, could we up our offer by 5 grand as it turned out that, due to the sellers not having paid their mortgage for some time and their IBI and water for 3 years what we had agreed upon as the purchase price would not even cover their debts. Oh yes, and the place was going to be repossessed by the bank at the end of August anyway. This wasn´t a pup, this was the complete litter.
Stunned silence.
Rude awakening.
Thank God and forums such as this one we had not signed anything or parted with a penny (I had been asked to transfer a 10% deposit directly to the owners bank account, which I, being inately cautious, had refused to do).
Continued in Getting Here. Later in July.