Should i pay a reservation deposit???

 Just to add,it is a BUYERS maket now......they have the power to dictate to a certain extent.

Georgia  

                       whist I accept what you say.   Nevertheless, if I am selling I would not take the property off the market until I get the Compaventa signed and the deposit.   That might mean that a person who wants to buy will lose out to another buyer and maybe a better offer.

 although property is moving here, to have an offer on a property at the moment is greeted with delight by most sellers.

I haven't met many vendors in this market that want to jeopardise any potential sale by playing hardball.

The chance of people outbidding each other for property at the moment.....well.....your more likely to see a flock of pigs carrying a consignment of rocking horse poo and chocolate teapots!

most will compromise to achieve a common goal.

Is that your way of saying I am right ?

Of course if had a buyer I might tell them I would hold it,  but if I could get a compravent from another buyer,  I would probably go back to the first offer and say sign now or sorry you lost out.

 No,far from it.

So does that mean the seller should risk loosing a sale just because someone has said they might buy ?  After all if its only them or their solicitor who has the money that is no different from them holding it themselves.

As they say,     the deal is not done until the contract is signed and money changes hands

 No,because we do a reservation deposit the minute we take the deposit so the buyer is commited imediately they pay and sign......the only thing that can break the reserva is the due dilligence bringing up anything unusual.

We get all venors to sign mandato de ventas issuing us with he power to accept offers at a set price,there fore we can sign on their behalf.

Is this really so difficult to understand and would you really lose a buyer for the sake of  waiting a week??

Is it me??

.............................................................. would you really lose a buyer for the sake of  waiting a week?

if your clent said on Monday they had paid you a deposit and then on tuesday I get another buyer who wants to proceeecd there and then,  If I put that person off and your client decided not to proceeed then I may have lost the Tuesday buyer.

 so let get me get this right...........

You are saying that when buying property in Spain,you shouldnt do any legal checks,due dilligence,checks for any incumberances,legal standing,cedula de habitacion etc etc etc....

You basically see something like it and then take 3,000€ out of your handbag and pass it over while you are discussing where to put the sofa?????

I have been on the forum for about 5 years now and in that time the common theme seems to be take all precaution and keep your senses about you at all times when purchasing..........you seem to be suggesting the opposite.

Are you really suggesting that someone parts with a deposit to a complete stranger with no legal checks....???? with all the goodwill in the world land registry,notia simple etc.. will take at least a couple of days??

Either you have not grasped what i have said, or......

 and just to answer your question

if your clent said on Monday they had paid you a deposit and then on tuesday I get another buyer who wants to proceeecd there and then,  If I put that person off and your client decided not to proceeed then I may have lost the Tuesday buyer.

and gained 3k!

yep, 

    but more importantly, not lost the sale

 You are saying that when buying property in Spain,you shouldnt do any legal checks,due dilligence,checks for any incumberances,legal standing,cedula de habitacion etc etc etc....

and you said yes to this so that you wouldn't lose a sale????????????????????????????????????

GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!!

People like you shouldn't be let loose on the Genral public!!!

Blimey....is it any wonder that foks like us who had thought to buy a place in Spain are now wondering whether it 's a good idea?  There doesn't seem to be a clear set of rules to follow to ensure no-one is out of pocket.

As a potential buyer, there is absolutely no way we would lodge a deposit with anyone other than our own Solicitor.  The seller knows (or should know) whether their property has full paperwork to enable a sale to go through smoothly.  The buyer does not...until his/her Solicitor has completed the searches. 

Here in the UK, something like 1 in 3 buyers do not go ahead with the purchase, for one reason or another.  Whenever this happens, other interested parties are informed that the sale has fallen through and they then have the option to put in an offer.  The only compensation due to the seller is any monies paid out to his/her Solicitor in respect of the sale.  The Agent incurs no fee until a sale goes through. 

We are talking about one of the most expenisive purchases made in most people's lifetime.  If I wasn't totally satisfied that all paperwork etc was in place and up-to-date on our potential purchase, we would not go ahead with the purchase.  In Spain, one has to be extra dilligent when looking to purchase a property...in light of the, now, well-documented cases involving fraud and corruption in the market.

Latest Up Date , Our Lawyer emails us that the `Agent/ Vendor are very disappointed that we will not agree to the 1000 Retention, THEY ARE DISAPPOINTED? !!!!! I guess they feel we aren`t after wasting 5 months of trying to purchase the place, incurring Lawyers fees and still no property, cancelling flights , K`s in a Euro Account doing F/A and they have the bloody cheek to say THEY are disappointed!!

Oh , Yes, must make this little nugget public , the Agent/ Vendor have no stated that unless we sign a Contract by 18th June the price will be higher !!!!! You really couldnt believe it could you , but it is true , here we are , biggest Economic drama , Euro may well collapse and thses jerks really think they can threaten potential purchasers with this kind of treatment , oh , yes, lets not forget that we were told back in September 2011 that  all ready for a speedy sale , ALL Paperwork in place , what a bloody joke!

In the 3 years or more that the Agent had it on their books can they possibly explain why it is , for their inflated 10% Comission , that they failed, or couldnt be arsed to even make sure that the properties they take on ARE actually ready for a sale and not the onus on the unsuspecting Purchaser to make sure all is correct , all this mind you after the Agent has demaned 3000 euros to `remove` from the Market , after Purchasers Lawyer has found out that very important Paperwork is missing , oh, yeah, after a few reminders from our Lawyer the Agent did `eventually` find the `missing` Plano of the property , which I hasten to add did not include all the property!!! They expect purchasers to stump up deposits before all this is clarified, they must be barking crazy in this day and age, the Property Scene really does need a huge over haul , until that very unlikely scenario happens I have some very good and sound advice to ALL POTENTIAL PURCHASERS 1, Do Not pay when asked to remove the property from the market, this is not , as any decent Lawyer will tell you is a Legal Requirement , also could be very hard to get back unless, should you be so determined to get that property , make it a condition that the 3000 euros are deposited with your Lawyer and returned to you direct should it prove the property IS NOT ready for a sale , if Agent doesnt agree walk away, they cant be trusted!

2. Advise Agent you want proof that the property is completley ready for a sale and you need to see proof BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK OF PAYING ANY DEPOSIT or wasting money on Lawyer fees and losing time on looking at something else that is possibly ready for sale !

3. You need to see the Escrutia , Plano of the property( this shows you the outline of the boundaries, buildings and even your attached nieghbours if its a village terrace house, if these arent available ask why not , every Registered and Legal property should have this , even the Owners should have this themselves as proof and copies suupleid to their appointed Agent.

4.There should also be a Stamped Document by the Local Town Hall to confirm that any renovations/ building works have been passed and approved and REGISTERED  by said Town Hall , this MUST be followed up with an UP TO DATE CASTRADO which MUST have the beforementioned Town Hall Registration included to show how and what the property looks like NOW !l these papers shopuld be STAMPED !!

5.Then get your Lawyer on the case and he/ she will check on searches etc and verify that all is ok to sign and pay a Deposit

I know my `thread` will incur lots of crap from `Agents` no doubt mostly female and from UK who know F/A about property but sorry guys/ Gals , your days are well and truly numbered , the Internet makes many people aware of the scams, ways to get money out of trusting potential purchasers and its only fair that these people, like us, are protected by everyone else making their own experiences known, we all know that their are still serious buyers , sadly not too serious sellers who think they are sitting in a very high priced property in the Sun that everyone wants , well lots still want to buy and even move to Spain permanently but please, stop treating us all with contempt and as cash cows , none of us are now, Agents, start to clean up your act, if you are a good and reputable Agent make yourself known by traceable recommendations, not just your mates!

We have now told our Lawyer that as we dont take kindly to threats , especially from a bloody Agent , that unless we sign the price will go up, in a nice way we have said , regrettably no , we will stand by advice from our Lawyer to insist on 10.000 euro retention, that we shall not be able to sign unless the owner can provide an up to date Castrado and if they feel that they can sell to another for more in a rapidly falling market then we wish them well , we will ask our Lawyer to `archive` their details and if they still wish to sell and  havent done so by end of the year they can come back to us but we can not guarantee will be offering the same price .

Oh,just seen a property we liked last year,just noticed its up for 35000, more than last year !! you couldnt make it up could you !!

Please lets forgo the acid retorts from `Agents, their cohorts and `website Agents with no address / offce etc , you lot need to wake up and realise that its a difficult world out there and you are not immune , people are thinking of spending lots of their hard earned money and none need `get rich merchants` to help them lose their dream , their plans and / or their money.

Spain is still ( in parts) a beautiful place , there are seruous sellers , the only real problem is finding them via real and experienced and HONEST Agents , to be quite honest we dont understand , in this day and age , why Owners dont try to market themselves , no rip off Comission that only makes potential buyers see an overprived property so dont even look ,advertise privatley , not on a Website that purports to be owners ads, only for the enquiery to be replied to by a `hidden Agent`!!

We are looking in Tormos , near Denia , if there are any PRIVATE sellers get in touch via Eyeonspain , we will not entertain any more `English Agents` as more than twice now we have come to realise they are not either qualified in the job, or really client focused at all , forget what you read about `Agents with `Awards , awards in nothing that protects you at all , the `awards` are totally meaningless we assure you !!

We are only putting this thread on as we feel due to our experiences we may just well save lots of others from expensive heartache , just read this again and make notes, remember , its a buyers market , not only in UK , Italy and France, but Spain too, even more so !!  Best of Luck to you all xxx

This message was last edited by Si`s partner on 06/06/2012.

 You could also put yourself in the seller's position as well.  We eventually sold our apartment (no agent) using the websites but only after encountering several time wasters.  Those who told us they had the funds or a mortgage in place and then dropped out at the last minute as they couldn't get a mortgage.  Yes, we said we'd be nice and not take a deposit as it was all hunky dory.  Sorry, after one "buyer" dropped out on the Tuesday before the notary was set up for the Friday we decided we would insist on a deposit next time.  We, as sellers, also paid for flights to come to Spain, paid notary fees and solicitors fees only to have the sale fall through twice and put off another potential buyer.  Plus paying for letters from administrators to say we were up to date with the community fees (OK, only €19 for the letter but we had to get this 3 times). So the seller loses on both having incurred these fees and dropping the price of the property plus taking time off work to deal with it.  When we did sell, we insisted a deposit was lodged with our solicitor to avoid time wasters.

Thousands upon thousands of people have bought property in Spain with no problems.  I think you are making a bit too much of this and the system of putting down a deposit avoids the gazundering and gazumping so prevalent in UK.  If the thought of going through an agent bothers you so much, why not go straight to the developer or builder?  That way, you can see the set up, if it's a permanent office or just a caravan next to the show home etc.  

There's two sides to every coin.  As buyers we had no problem the second time around when we went to the builder and looked around their office.  As sellers we have encountered time wasters and incurred costs which are annoying and expensive.  By insisting on a deposit, we may have lost a potential buyer or two but at least we knew that, with the deposit, any costs we incurred for flights/notaries/letters etc would be covered.  The loss of 35% on the property was one we could  live with, time wasters we could not.

We sold our property without an agent after we had returned to the UK.  We placed an add on the Dalton's site (we're nothing to do with them, by the way, so not trying to advertise!) and asked a friend in Spain to show prospective buyers around so that we didn't have to fly out until we got a serious buyer. 

We had absolutely everything in place that was needed, legally, to sell the property and we wouldn't have put the property up for sale without these, in any case.  Once we had a serious buyer, we insisted on seeing evidence of their funds in return for allowing their (English) Solicitor to, immediately, see copies of all our documentation.  Our buyers needed a mortgage to top up the funds they already had, which meant the sale wasn't completed for three months ie; until the mortgage money was in their account.  We didn't request a deposit.  The sale went through without a single hitch. 

The key to this easy sale/purchase, we're absolutely convinced, was the fact that our property was totally legal with all paperwork in place and all bills paid up-to-date.  Perhaps, not so important but definitely a plus as far as our buyers were concerned was the fact that they knew the price of the property WAS the price of the property with no commission added.  Their research had shown how much agents' commission was added to the price of property in the area.  We, ourselves, had purchased the property via an agent at 9,000 euros above the price that the Spanish vendor had requested.....and the house only cost us 39,000 euros in total since it needed extensive rebuilding!!!!  The Spanish vendor hadn't a clue about this until he, very kindly, came round to bring us a welcome gift once the sale had gone through.  He happened to ask us if we were pleased at gaining such a property at 30,000 euros....and he was as shocked and disappointed as we were to know how much we had paid.  He paid our 'rates' for two years by way of compensation. 

When we did decide to sell, we had wanted to use an agent in the same way as we do in the UK ie; pay commssion at a reasonable rate out of the sale of the market price.  However, not one agent would accept a reasonable commission!  OK, it was at the start of the downturn and we know there are agents out there at the moment who don't take huge commissions, but we couldn't believe how greedy some agents were back then.  And, if I'm totally honest...most of them didn't do a good job. Far from it.

By the way, the agent we bought the house through was a man!  But yeh, he was British!

As a Vendor, like here in UK and any other country it can be very stressful and sales fall through, and yes there are always timewasters , everyone can relate to that in their lives when selling a property.

The only sensible system we know of is in Scotland,

In reply , as you were selling privatley you could have given your Lawyer Power of Attorney to deal with the sale for you , this would have saved you keep flying out, also, it would have been helpful if a friend or nieghbour could have shown peole around for a small retainer?

You go to an Authorised Notary here in UK, look up via Google, you go to him/her with Passports , other id as requested and a Printout from your Spanish Lawyer , print this off and its filled in and Witnessed by the Notary , this is then sent off to the Foriegn Office to be Apostiled and sent by Coutier to your Spanish Lawyer , easy as that!

Not all sales are apartments on the front , new builds etc , direct from builders, some are resales of older property , all these none the less pose serious pitfalls for the unwary and all I have written should also cover these sales too, how many people have bought Apartments only to find they are not even on the correct Water and Electricity suppliers , how many bought new builds only to find they are not Legal , with insisting on an UP TO DATE CASTRADO will any potential purchaser be fully protected.

There are always costs on both sides when buying and selling a property , however , if one is selling its makes quite and prudent COMMON SENSE to be sure that all the sellers  paperwprk is in place so the sale can proceed safley and smoothly , what is wrong with that, one wants to sell , then make it psoosible to sell , not make it a burden for the potential purchaser to keep asking questions and chasing up what should be in the Paperwork but clearly isnt !

That is why always , an Experiences Lawyer is used, one recommended via a Consulate , not via some website or Agent . God Forbid!!

Do you really believe that the `caravan` set up next to a building site even with a show home is not an Agent selling on behalf of the Developer , this is where others went to very wrong and lost thousands as we are all aware , you dont honestly think that its the actual Builder selling them do you ? !!!!!!!!!

You had to fly out to oversee selling your property, we , like hundreds of others have flown out , paid for accommadtion, hired cars , used up holiday time to view property that one is assured is all correct , when its not at all the case we, like others have wasted a damn more money than you have, at least you havent had to pay for somewhere to stay time and time again on a wild goose chase from less than truthful Agents etc!

Take it you had an Apartment , if you had to drop 35% to sell thats what the market dictates , same here in UK, some properties have  dropped more than that I can tell you , also, if you bought quite a few years ago you have made a very good profit , not as much as you may have hoped for but at least you have enjoyed your time there and now moved on, lucky you, there are some still hoping to sell for 2000 prices or even earlier , those are the ones who are a real load of time wasters , same prices being asked for as 5 and more years ago , not forgetting that the photos they put our were taken years ago as well and bear no resemblence to the tired old wreck it is today for crazy prices, not much fun for the poor people who have flown over and paid for flights, etc for nothing !! Even Agents photos are very rarley up to date and bear no relation to the same property today .

As a Vendor you have no right to demand a Deposit until you and the purchaser have all agreed the price and the purchaser`s Lawyer has had time to check all is Legal and correct , would you expect a Deposit in UK, I dont think so so why should you demand that in Spain , a Deposit in UK is paid on signing of Contracts, never before so your argument does simply not hold up I`m afraid, as for keep paying for up to date info on your Administration fees etc, again this would be done by your Lawyer when making checks and the purchasers Lawyer , these are paid up and any little outstanding is held back on a small retention , any remaining monies returned to the Vendor, quite simple really.

If we were selling in Spain we would do same as here , make sure , before people wasted a journey ans time and money , that they had as much information as possible , up to date photos( inside and out) , room measuerments , what is and is not included in the sale , if they were still interested and wished to purchase we would then give them our Lawyers details and let them get on with it, we would also make very certain all our Legal Paperwork was up to date too, unlike so many in Spain who do building works and thnk thats it , they dont need to have it checked, Regisistered , Castrado up dated , like we have to do here in UK, Building works, extentions passed and approved , Land Registry amended and up dated.

Yes there will always be timewasters , here in UK, Spain too , but we have never come across so many `Agents/ Vendors who simply have no idea of what their property is actually worth , no idea of what they should have in place before even marketing their properties and just seem to think they can sell and no one will know whats going on , it simply wont wash any more , people are well informed , and its a very good thing too , yes there are many thousands of people who have bought safley in Spain, what I am trying to make clear that in the present economic climate their are thoudands trying to sell but not being honest with those wishing to buy and this has to stop as no one any more, any more than they could before, stand to lose thousands of Euros and / or £s , there is no excuse these days for ignorance om either side, however theie are still many ready to take advatage of those less informed , hence the need to make as many aware of potential pitfalls , its very clear `Agents `arent going to be overly upfront , all they want, even more so in these struggling times , is their over priced Commision for which, as we have outlined is a lot for doing a little, even in UK Comission Rtaes are at best 2-3 % and UK market is still very slow too , so 10% is nothing short of greed and its passed onto the Purchaser unlike here where the Vendor wants to sell  pays some one to sell , not put off a buyer who has no intention of paying on top of the market price for someone who is effectivley working for the Seller !

Its a stupid and totally non- transparent system and is not enshrined in Law , no Law insists that the Buyer pays for the sale , so why do people think they need to , market forces, seller sells, buyers buys , seller appoints Agent, seller pays Agent , only  time a buyer should pay anything is when they appoint a Property Finder .

So its easy to sell in Spain , just make sure all the Property details are up to date , dont think the Purchaser is going to wait while the Seller/ Vendor gets their act together and then bitches that after all the wasted time that the purchaser has gone `off the boil`, Purchaser then starts to wonder what else is wrong and they need to be aware of?

Also, it could , on the other hand be the case that the Vendor / Agent dont bother to deal with all the Legalities until a buyer is interested , sadly by then most buyers dont want to wait around while the Agent/ Vendor race around like headless chickens and then bitch that they have done all they needed to as quick as they could , not good enough Im afraid , they should have had all that ready for a sale from the onset , one whiff if a priblem and peoples eyes glaze over and start looking around while the first one is racing around trying to get up to date Documents , catch 22 but so easilky avoided .

Enough , hope this anwers you particular points , any `Agents` offended, tough, you have hard skin am sure so can take it . taken enough from others for the past 20 years , to the Professional and Experienced Agents , huge apologies, it is no great feat trying to conduct your business when surrounded by such incompetant  and totally unaceptable competition , all we can say is up date wensites, push off the uesless ones and show as much as you can how you deal with Clients, it can only help to get rid of the crap!

Returning to those `Awards ` one see`s attached to some `Agents` Websites , we have to say HERE AND NOW, there was not ONE AWARD for client service , Vendors / Purchasers service , these `Awards seem to be for best website , most contacts around the world , easy acces to properties etc but NONE for being the best for clear and honest client service, funny that eh?

 "to the Professional and Experienced Agents , huge apologies, it is no great feat trying to conduct your business when surrounded by such incompetant  and totally unaceptable competition"

No problem,apologies accepted,the incompetent agents make life easier for us anyway.

Dear Georgia , are you or any other professional available in Alicante area? seems to be a dearth of any one there unless the properties are millions of course!!