No electricity for 8 weeks.

Hi, Please can anyone tell me if the following is normal! We bought an apartment in Duquesa Port in July. In August our solicitor told us we needed a boletin certificate to change the name on the endessa electricity account to ours. No problem, we paid the £400 and were then informed by our key holder that there is no power to the apartment. 8 weeks later it's still not been reconnected! Our solicitor says it's perfectly normal to wait this long. How on earth do people manage who are living in their Spanish property if they have to wait so long with no power, surely not!   We are returning next week for our first holiday there, with no power!! We speak no Spanish, and only have contact with the solicitor over there. What can we do to get our power on for our holiday, or is it just a case of having to wait for Endessa to decide to reconnect for us. We think that the solicitors may have made some error along the way, but all we get from them is " You have to wait!" Please can someone enlighten us! Many thanks.

Hi

This is not normal to have no Electricity for 8 Weeks. What is your Solicitor doing and are you paying him/her for their services.Have you been paying Endesa for Electricity yet. Are you aware of any Biills outstanding in the Previous Owners name or you name.Being far away from Spain does not help this situation. Maybe you need to find a new Gestor when you come back to Spain soon.  I have heard good reports from this company but you will have for pay for their services.

http://www.myelectricsinspain.com/

Good luck

Nigel

Hello Nigel,

We have had no bills yet, the solicitor is supposed to be setting up our account. We paid £400 to an electrician employed by the solicitor for the boletin, about 8 weeks ago and have had no power since. We have had constant contact with our solicitor who each time says it's perfectly normal to take this long to change over an account. I have asked the solicitor now for the contract number, and date it was set up. The solicitor was paid for the conveyancing when we completed our purchase on the apartment. His fee included setting up all direct debits and changing over utility accounts to our name.  The full fee was paid to him on completion.

Our first family holiday in the apartment is booked for next week, it includes a heavily pregnant daughter in law, and myself who is disabled. The prospect of having to stay there with no electricity is not appealing, and very upsetting as we can't travel over to use the apartment very often. I will contact the site you suggested tomorrow, thank you for the information. Regards, Celia

Hi Celia

Welcome to the Eye on Spain Forum and hope you enjoy your Apartment. Endesa reads your Meter every 2 Months and sends you a Bill. For my Apartment my meter was read on 19th August and 14th October this year. Off course if you have one of these New Smart Meters,Endesa can read these remotely and bill you as normal. Once you have sorted your account out,one can register on the Endesa Website,if you so wish,to view these Bills electronically as well. Here is the Link.

 https://www.formularios.endesaonline.com/formularios/form/inicio.jsf;jsessionid=cu4oL3b26jjrGf6jqhewAw__

Regards

Nigel

Celia

8 weeks without electricity is not normal !!

What I suspect has happened is that the boletin has identified work that needs doing before they will reconnect you, the electrician has probably quoted for the work but your lawyer is thinking OMG I've got to go back to them and ask for more money just weeks after completeing the sale. At this point he probably put the file in his pending tray.

I hope I'm wrong

Can your keyholder speak to the electrician who done the boletin? he could then shed some more light to as to the result of the boletin and whether or not any further work was required.

Hi, Our solicitor did say that endessa had asked for a second certificate, but that the electrician had done it. To be honest we would rather pay up and get the power on if there is further work needed, instead of the stress of worrying about arriving to no power next week. I will contact our key holder and see if she can ring the electrician for us. Many thanks.

we had to wait 3 months to get our electricity on. It involved a Boletin and then a new cable to our new meter. Our solicitor did tell us we'd have to wait and I'm sure he dreaded our weekly phone call.

The supplier was Iberdrola

Hi, I think it's a similar problem we have. After ringing our solicitor this morning and being insistent with him he explained that we had had a shared meter on our apartment, which now is to be replaced with a new seperate cable, and meter. I don't know why he couldn't have just explained that weeks ago. Feel a bit happier now, we had visions of large unpaid bills being inherited from our apartment sellers. He confirmed that there are no outstanding bills, its just Spanish mañana attitude, which I suppose we have to accept, along with all the nice Spanish bits!  We will just have to visit the nearest shop selling candles and camping cookers next week. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Hi bizzylizzy. You might want to buy a couple of rechargable lanterns to take over. Then you can ask a friendly bar owner in the day if it's okay to plug them in (offer to pay, even; and don't forget some international adaptors - which you can get in Poundland). Just as a precaution in case they're needed as they will give you a few hours light each night. It'll be atmospheric! I think it will be starting to get dark fairly early over there now, but lanterns would at least help. Then, go to bed early! Remember you're British and you can put up with this kind of thing. Good luck.

I remember me and STU had no electric for a month we eat sardines nearly everynight and cuddled to keep warm dont worry summer usually starts in May time so just enjoy its all part of the Spanish lifestyle dont take any valuables with you and have one of those personal alarms nearby you will most probably get broken into 

Welcome to Espana 

Thanks for the advice😩

bizzylizzy, How will you heat water? I hope that you are not all electric as a lot of places in Spain are. If you have no means of heating water I would not stay in the apartment.........book into a hotel.

Hi, We are thinking of doing just that now, it's an all electric apartment. We are going to go to the endessa office in Estepona to try and sort it out while we are there. I think we were probably naive expecting it all to go through snag free, I suppose we have to accept it and wait for them to reconnect. Thank you for your reply. 😁

Have a lovely holIday and hope that you can sort things out whilst you are there. Spain works very slowly and I suppose that it is good to know that from the off. Can drive some of us mad! On the plus side, hotels are fairly cheap in November.

Thank you. X

Liz,  When you go to the 'Endesa Office' be aware that it may in fact be a third party contarcted by Endesa, and not Endesa.  That is the way it works where I live.

Are issues such as the Boletin, shared meter, new cable, new meter etc not considered part of the legal responsibilities of the conveyancing lawyer in Spain prior to completion?

To be without electricity for months after completion and not have your property fit for use seems extraordinary..... Is there no system whereby you can ensure correct provision of electricity before a purchaser completes?

Apparently thats how it works in Spain, the utilities are changed over after completion. I don't think its the solicitors fault after speaking to them again, they are constantly chasing up endessa, but say they are being passed from person to person. Hopefully we will get to the bottom if it next week when we go into the office. Thanks for your replies.

The new owner makes the arrangements for the utilities, just it used to be for sure in UK-   But of course one could ask their solicitor (if they had used one, I never have) to make the arrangements for them.

His fee had included all the utility change overs, and direct debit set up. Everything else has gone through smoothly.