Costa del Sol Property Blog

The Aifos owner, Jesús Ruiz Casado could face a prison sentence of four years for failing to return funds paid by buyers for properties on a development in Casares that was never built. Approximately 20 buyers, many of them foreign couples, were never refunded the sums of between 50,000 and 70,000 euros they paid towards properties on the Hacienda Casares development. Aifos is expected to have received more than 1.1 million euros in total. Construction was supposed to start in November 2004 but the development never materialised.

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HOW bad Europe’s debt crisis gets depends largely on Spain, which would be much harder to rescue than smaller economies like Greece. How bad things get in Spain depends largely on the banks, which are already trying to find an additional €15 billion ($21.1 billion) to meet new capital requirements imposed by the government. And how bad things get for Spanish banks depends largely on the country’s unfolding property bust. Nestling at the heart of these worries is land.
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The situation is so severe that the government recently appointed a special overseas property advisor to help deal with it and to better understand the problems of those involved.

As a result, contentious issues such as illegal properties which do not have correct permits, cases where off-plan developments have not been built as specified and the length of time and cost involved in resolving property disputes were recently raised by the British ambassador to Spain with the Andalucian regional government and the Minister for Public Works and Housing.
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Investors bought off-the-plan apartments in a proposed development called Estepona Beach and Country Club, 30km west of Marbella.

In some cases, the prospective owners – many of whom were from Northern Ireland – put down an £85,000 deposit for their Spanish properties.

However, the land still belonged to its original owner and the complex was never built.

An investigation is now ongoing into Ocean View Properties, based in Birmingham, which was the British representative for Sun Golf Desarrollos Immobiliarios SL in Spain.
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A couple who face losing their house in Britain to a Spanish bank have warned of the dangers of falling behind in mortgage payments on holiday homes abroad.

In an alarming development for the many thousands of Britons who have bought properties in Spain, a bank in Marbella is using EU law to force Carol and Ian Chatterton out of their £300,000 cottage in Wiltshire.
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The population of Malaga province is continuing to increase; however, this growth is mainly due to the presence of foreigners and it must also be said that the increase during the past year has been minimal and the population has grown by only 13,254 inhabitants. The economic crisis has led to a change in migration and the number of foreign residents in Spain has dropped by approximately 100,000.
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In recent article in the Daily Mail sheds some light on the amount of retired individuals from the UK looking at moving back to the UK in this more difficult climate that we are finding ourselves in. Based on the same population it appears that even with bad exchange rates and a quiet Spanish property market, more Britons are still happy to stay in their adopted country.

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In the last few months, several promoters have seen increases in the level of Costa del Sol property sales, compared to 2009, although financing is still hard to come by.

If this is the case the next report by the Ministry of housing should reflect these positive trends as this was not apparent due the first trimester.

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The G-14 (group of largest developers in Spain), claim that there will be a shortage of properties in Spain in the next 2 to 3 years in certain areas if the level of granted licences continues to drop. Pedro Perez (General Secretary of the group) claims that due to the lack of building permits having been handed out, prices on newly built properties in urban centres have already been adjusted via supply and demand.

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At least according to an article on OPP. Leading up to May, Rightmove (leading British property portal) claims that of the 10 searches that have increased the most 50% were for Spanish property locations. Key interest was in Minorca up 9.06%, Marbella up 6.68%, Galicia up 5.96%, Northern Spain up 5.22%, and the Balearic Islands up +3.65%.
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Although not the typical article on Costa del Sol property, this article was sent to me this morning. As the title implies it is about Timeshare, specifically for Spain, but it should have direct ramifications for many of the Timeshare companies that have mis-sold properties down here.

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There is light at the end of the tunnel for some of the 16,500 properties within the Marbella municipality that were built but never got their first occupancy licences. Although bought in good faith, often with mortgages, owners have waited years to see if their homes would ever become regularised. Luckily for some, a few property developers are already working with the town hall to reach solutions for the many thousands of homes that were built without the relevant paperwork. The first to receive their licences are almost 300 owners with the La Reserva de Marbella in Las Chapas, east of Marbella. Some of the blocks in the development were without licences, leading to problems in recent years with utility providers, mortgages lenders and other institutions.

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In the short to medium term it appears that Spain’s property market is not set to rebound as many with a vested interest have been claiming. With high unemployment and lack of credit a general improvement in property transactions is still a way off. Even though the INE property statistics do appear to showing that the market has bottomed.

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Work on the major infrastructure projects under way in the province of Malaga is soon to feel the effects of the government cutbacks. If during the first couple of years of the downturn public works helped keep the province’s economy afloat, the situation looks set to change. On Wednesday the Minister of Development José Blanco announced where he would make his cutbacks, which amount to savings of some 3,200 million euros on a national level

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