have you had a bad time buying in Spain?

I'm a freelance journalist writing a feature for a women's weekly magazine about buying property abroad., whether it's to relocate, as a holiday home, or as an investment.

We'll be looking at how to make sure it all goes smoothly, and how to avoid the pitfalls.

We're also looking for a woman who had a bad experience, perhaps because they didn't do their research thoroughly enough. If anybody is interested in taking part - and there's a small payment - please post with your email address. Many thanks

Judy

I am happy to assist but as per the forum guidelines, I won't post my email address but I will send you a PM later this evening.

As a new user, you might need to ask Justin to give you access to your PMs though.

Regards

Noreen

Thanks both - I apologise, Noreen, I didn't realise you couldn't post email addresses.

I have asked for access to my PMs and am waiting to access them so please do not think me rude for not replying!

Judy

Hi Judy, post in Justin, help required please regarding PMs to new members..

Didn't you read our rules regarding email addresses ? Check rules out HERE

DON'T POST YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS - Eye on Spain is a highly ranked website in the search engines.  It means we get thousands of visitors every day because the search engines crawl all our pages.  It also means that unscrupulous people out there can get information and use it to Spam you, they can do this if you post your email address or personal details on the forum.  For security reasons we suggest you don't post your email address or personal details and use the private message facility instead which is much safer, and stops your email address from potentially getting into the wrong hands.  Private messages are not read by the search engines.

Judy, I hope you will also be showing the other side of the coin - there are far more people who have good experiences than bad and truthfully the market is in a bad enough state here without further depressing it with more horror stories. 

I don't dispute that there is a case for warning people about unscrupulous developers and agents (one of my favourite hobby horses) but there is another side to the story as well and people need to know how to go about doing it in a way that keeps the grief to a minimum - it isn't rocket science.  It starts with understanding that there is no such thing as a free lunch and avoiding like the plague those agents etc who offer 'free' and heavily subsidised inspection trips and instead investing time, effort and resources in your own research and keeping your eye on forums such as this one. Much cheaper in the long run and much more likely to deliver the right result with minimum pain.