completion by power of attorney

We are completing on our property on phase two  by power of attorney as unable to travel to spain at the moment.  We know we have to specify its just for completion  only  and go to the spanish embassy in London, but would appreciate any comments or information  , if anyone has completed this way. 

regards

Sue and Michael

Hi!
We have a villa in Terreros - not on CDP - but I love to keep up with what is going on 

With reference to your question - be very, very careful...

We bought our place , a resale ,4 years ago. When it came to completion one of us had to stay behind in the UK, On the advice of the abogado I gave OH all the necesary papers and written  permission to sign on my behalf. As we were buying in joint names, and with no mortgage, it ought to have been straightforward . The vendor did have a mortgage and the bank's representative was with the notary  to take payment.

All seemed to have gone smoothly....OH (accompanied by our son) met the abogado, went to the notary and signed all the papers, met the vendor, and saw that the cheque to pay off  the vendors' mortgage was given to the banker.  4 months later we received our official escritura, and even with my limited Spanish I saw that the villa was ours, with no outstanding debt.

We continued the relationship with the abogado as we required other legal services. To cut a long story short - we fell out with him and 18 months after the  purchase we employed another abogado. 

The new abogado contacted the land registry and found out the following....(NB - Land Registry is king, do not rely totally on what it says in the escritura. Always check up..the sooner you find any problems the cheaper it is to sort it out.)

1) The vendors' mortgage was still shown to be outstanding
2) OH owned 50%of the property
3) The vendors owned the other 50%.

Now ..only point 2 of the above was true...and luckily we found out the anomolies quite quickly. However it still took another 2 trips to the notary and 3000 euros to sort it all out. Luckily all the official 'players' in the saga were still able to be contacted......but not the vendor...! That complicated matters.

The first abogado was not corrupt but slapdash and lazy and did not take the time and trouble to tie up all the loose ends. It seems that because we were not both present  the contracts needed to be ratified as soon as possible after completion. In our case -this was not done. Goodness knows what would have happened if  one of us had 'popped our cloggs' before it was all sorted out.

So ..please check if a further visit to the notary is necessary. I suppose this is the beauty of such sites as EOS - to learn from other folks' mistakes

Best Wishes....and Good Luck. You coun't have chosen a better place  than Terreros


This message was last edited by randolph on 10/28/2008.

This message was last edited by randolph on 10/28/2008.

Unless you have an urgent reason for signing - which will benefit yourselves - recommend delaying until you can go out - particularly considering how long the builders have delayed us buyers.

Hi Sue and Michael

As Rowleyhouse says please look into this as they have delayed us so long is there any rush on your part,  wait until it suits you and both go out to sign.
We have just come back and the site is great, so if it is only to complete wait until your both able to sign ! good luck and enjoy your place in paradise. 

Hello Mick and Pam,

Thank you for your reply and also to Rowleyhouse and Randolph.  We probably have to go with the power of attorney as one of us could travel  to sign but for medical reasons I cannot travel  by air until the Spring.  

We are trying to do this as soon as we can and have made initial enquiries to a reliable solicitor  and notary who  we hope will deal with this and the necessary translations.  We do have our NIE numbers.

The reason we dont want to delay is because there are problems with la tercia real, its been closed down, and we want to complete quickly.

Thank you all for your help and advice, much appreciated and look forward to meeting you soon!

Sue and Michael

im completing on monday, if theres anybody else is ready to complete could they send me a private message.

We gave our Spanish solicitor Power of Attorney but we didn't need to go to London.  Our own solicitor back in the UK is a public notary, find them in the yellow pages, who asks for the documenation to be faxed, from Spain, we signed and he posted it back to Spain with his official stamp on it.  The Spanish solicitor attends San Pedro Notary and everybody and his dog charges you lots of money.   We've just came back from Calas Del Pinar this morning but we agreed that it's a beautiful site and worth the wait. 

Jo and Jim Ph 3