Lost the lot!

Hi everyone. Could really use some advice. Am unable to contniue with mortgage and intend to end my wallet's agony after last booking this year. The real killer crunch is the wild costs applied by the Communidad maintaining the pools, lifts, gardens, lighting etc with rental receipts barely covering 2 months mortgage payments per year!. Recently we've all been hit by the new 'ENTITY' charge for mainly items such as bins and street lights which were previously covered by Roda, adding a further 500 euros to the annual costs.

My question is about ways to get out,  just handing the keys in to the bank is one option, after hopefully selling off all the furniture and fittings. Another is to offer it for someone to just take over the mortgage, preferably with a fair payment for the air-con and good quality beds, table & chairs, fridge-freezer etc. Apart from the mortgage, which is a drain, there is now a total of well over 2000 euros p.a., plus management/keyholder costs etc. Apparently there is a some arrangement one can make with the bank where they take it  back, after it has been emptied, without further claims on the mortgagee. Next big question is 'DO THEY HOUND YOU FOR SHORTFALL? If they don't, and there must be many thousands of properties given back , is it feasible to give in the keys and fly home?

There are various chancer companies offering to 'assist' with the inevitable up front fat fee, which I'm reluctant to use, so am anxious to find best solution. I have personally lost my £50,000 deposit, and my brilliant son has funded the mortgage for a year or more hoping the sitution would improve, but as we all know, it's even worse still, and for us, unsustainable. Any informed advice and opinions will be very gratefully received.  Rollo

There is some information here...................

http://www.eyeonspain.com/forums/posts-long-9875.aspx

I should definitely find some professional advice

Hi Rollo

Sorry to hear that things are hitting you hard. If you want to hang onto the apartment, have you thought of moving your mortgage? Halifax has re-opened it's application system again and you can take a mortgage out with teh first 5 years on interest only. That's what we've done and it's reduced out €150k mortgage from €910 pm to €244. A huge difference which means that we are at least now covering our costs if not making a big profit.

Hope this helps your dilemma

Thanks for that Pommers. Already tried that and amazingly, due to new costs  for valuation etc, plus greatly enhanced deposit requirements, to use the Halifax 'offer' would cost multi thousands. I have been into our bank and tried to get an interest only package, but the truth is 'I've had enough'. Roda is largely a ghost town for 9-10 months a year, despite a very few committed residents. The maintenance costs are crazy, and my rental income, despite substantial advertising, amounts to peanuts. Big queston is ' What for?' - a dreary unattractive semi-desert with a virtually fish free sea, attack mode mosquitoes, loony prices, a dire system of 'notaries' with hilariously expensive and often useless attorneys. Laughable 'Spanish practices' resulting in near chaos with oceans of pointless documentation and endless delays. (try getting a phone put on!)

When I paid my deposit using a beautiful pile of US dollars, I was assured of golfers queuing to rent all year (HAHA) mortgage at 2% ( started at 6%!!!), and service costs maxing at about £7 per week, (now over £50!!!) There was to be a free boat service across the Mar Menor to the beach club, a fabulous De Vere hotel, saunas, gymnasia, supermarkets, etc etc. There are several big holes here and there, and that's it. Nope, OUT is the only way for me, and the endless haemorrage of  irreplaceable cash will stop. I predict Roda will sag much further yet as rising costs and charges are borne by an ever decreasing number of payers, whose outlay will continue to rise as their numbers fall. Then the contractor's prices charged will HAVE to fall and  maintenance will decline, the gardening slow up etc until there's hardly anyone left to pay the communidads, entity and management costs. Then there's the ongoing utilities, all way too dear. Roda themselves having charged far too much per sq/m for the apartments etc are still busily counting the multi millions, but even that mountain of money MUST be dwindling, in common, I imagine, with other similar desert developers.  Polaris and many others are already history, and the vultures are picking over the bones. How I wish I had my pile of US$ back now. Thanks again  Pommers,  Rollo 

Hello Rollo 

The current global financial situation has many casualties and it would appear that you are one of them. However if you have recently visited Roda you would see that far from being deserted most of the year there are a lot of cars there every evening and the rental market is doing really well. There are a large number of monthly renters I understand from the Oil refinery Repsol in Cartagena and they are paying in excess of 600 euro per month. 

I have just come home from Roda and it is really busy and I am there at least once a month for a week or so and have witnessed the increasing growth of population there in the last year first hand. To be honest most of the renters seem to be young men who work hard and support the Club House in the evenings so this is good for the resort. 

I have been in the property market for longer than I care to remember even before it was called the property market. I bought in Roda for the Mar Menor and its health giving properties, the proximity to the airport, the ease of access to Cartagena and Murcia and the fact that Los Alcazares and San javier are so different to other Spanish "tourist" destinations in that they still retains their identity and have not become totally anglicised.

Whilst I have sympathy for everyone caught up in the current fallout from the financial markets I do not think that Roda merits your description and in my experience of the property markets I consider that Roda is best placed of all the resorts in the area to survive the "crisis" and is one of the premier resorts in the area.

Don 

Nice one Don,

Kick a man when he's down why don't you.

 While I sympathise with anyone who has become a victim of the economic crisis and lost money I have to say that anyone who buys an apartment and hopes to cover the mortgage payments with rentals has been badly advised.  I also suspect that the buyer was an American 9he mentioned payment in dollars) and as such should be glad he didn't buy in his homeland where the maintenance costs of property are five times that of a property in Spain.  We have been recently out to Roda and would agree with Don that the atmosphere there was great.  The Club House was busy as was the general area.  Having talked to some people from a former Polaris World Resort  and heard of the situation there we feel glad we own at Roda.  Yes the hotel has not been built but you can't build a business for which there is demand.  That is economic suicide.  I do wish people would stop knocking the resort and be grateful that the place is as good as it is during a difficult financial time. 

 Sorry folks, a slip of the keyboard, I of course meant to say " for which there is NO demand".  A hotel for which there is no demand is commercial suicide.

Come on everyone - stop bickering.

The whole point here is that Rollo was asking for help and advice on what is for him a difficult situation. Yes - he said some things about the resort which we may not all like (I love Roda too) but is it very understandable when he is about to lose his apartment and probably in excess of £50k.

So if you have any advice to give about how he can handle this then speak up.

Hi folks. Thanks for support gentlemen, much appreciated. To Donny, I'm a Brit, but owned a condo in Florida which I sold. Some of that cash was used to buy the Roda flat. The ongoing maintenance charges in Florida  were a fraction of the costs in Roda. It's true that Roda is probably the best of a large number of dubious developments, and ought to muddle through the ongoing downturn, but what if it collapses? I was there for 10 days just 3 weeks ago, and our 'block' had  a small family who 'own' an apartment and 2 long-term semi permanent residents ONLY. All the other aptmnts were empty. There seems to be higher occupancy in phase 1and 2. At my age losing a substantial chunk of one's life savings is no joke, but the joke is really on me. I went out with the INTENTION of buying on a golf course, not to acquire the ubiquitous 'dream home' as I warned the sales guys NOT to call it. I said at the time 'anyone can buy a flat in Spain' The mortgage was 3 times the 'sales' promoted figure, and the valuations heavily padded. The bank rapidly recovered my 'perceived' profit with 6% interest. Amazingly I have just today received 2 bookings!. Between them they almost cover 1 month's expenses. So, friends, I'm not looking for sympathy although it is appreciated, just advice and info regarding, mainly, the likelihood of the bank pursuing us for any shortfall. Bearing in mind there are 1.5 MILLION unsold properties in Spain, it would take the laughable legal proffession at least a century to prepare all those cases. Repsol offerd 400/month for long term rentals!. At 600 it's almost worth doing until you realise the communidad at E1800pa, plus almost E500 for the 'entity', and, of course, the mortgage at close to E900/month. Interest only payments for a while, can help, but it's short term and these charges seldom go down. ( Senor Ruiz and Sna Ballate of P21 have hammered some sense into several overcharging and inefficient contractors, which has put a cap on some of them, for a while!)  I really do wish everyone the very best, and hope that it all pans out well. Thanks for the tips received so far.  Rollo

Rollo

I too was sorry to read of your plight and yes you are right we were all persuaded by both a fairly hard and not altogether truthful sell and our own ambitions to buy in Roda or for that matter any one of hundreds of developments up and down the Costas.

In some ways in is refreshing to hear of your problems rather than the usual stick our heads in the sand comments. Don't get me wrong I too love Roda but stories like yours are not one offs and a level of reality is required.

Because Roda is a relatively new development very few will have had experience of what you are asking and I highly recommend you trawl through and post your question on the Spain discussions links under the Forum tab where many before have asked similar questions and it is possible you may get a response from one of the online solicitors comments or even contact someone such as Maria directly, you will normally get a response.

Glad to hear on a positive note that there are those attempting to keep costs to a minimum in these difficult times

good luck

Rollo - check out General Spain forum (Spain discussions) Go to heading Owning a Property then subsection: selling your property. It has a thread titled 'Dacion el pago - handing back the keys'

Why don't you copy/paste your plight on there as that thread is 'active' at the moment. Maria has commented on it too.....

Good luck: We are in the Corvera Legal Action Team - it's sh**t in all corners!!

Carole

Thanks Carole. Will get into the postings. Not sure quite how to copy and paste stuff as it usually vanishes!  You're dead right about sh*t in all corners. Greece, spain, Portugal, then Italy,- all b*gg*red by gross over borrowing and simple idleness relying on only tourism. They don't actually make anything, bit like here in GB now, so we're probably up the same gum tree albeit not quite so high!! Cheers Rollo

rollo

sorry to hear of your plight , i am sure there are many others in a similar situation who have not put there head above the paraphet .

we were long term renters on phase 2 whilst waiting for our phase 4 brisa to be completed ( only 4 years !!) and boy am i glad we rented prior to completion as it gave us a very clear insight into what i would term the real roda asapose to the busy holiday period roda .

we found the clubhouse to be a potentially excellent facality although the food and service standards fell short of 5* on a number of occasions (the service did appear to get better once they realised you were "a regular" ) on a number of occasions in the busy holiday period we were confronted by a what i believe to be a son of a roda sales employee using the golf buggies to ferry young ladies around from the clubhouse late at night (causing quite a nuisence on the walkway to the clubhouse ) . the volume of dog mess on the walkways is imho unacceptable on a resort of this supposed stature , the locals were free to come and go and use the pools unchallanged ( i believe this has now been addressed) . i felt the actual build quality of the apartment blocks (ie cracks in exterior walls ) to fall well below expectations at the price point of the apartments , on speaking to a number of owners it was nearly impossible to get calidona to do anything about these issues .

we contacted a large estate agent who is very active in the murcia area as they appeared to have sold a large number of apartments on roda ( ie 2 pages of apartments had gone from there website )    hoping this would give us some encouragement that apartments were actually selling (abait at a lower price)   only to be told that they had actually been reposessed !! which made me wonder how many units on roda are actually in the hands of banks ?  and if people are struggaling to cover costs with low rentals now what will happen when interest rates go back up as they inevitably will ?.

renting long term on roda gave us a valuable insight into roda both for its potential ( which i believe to be immence) but also to its pitfalls which in our experiance are numerous by far the largest being calidonas reluctance to commit to providing the advertised faca;aties and almost contempt for its customers , with the number of owners not paying community fees etc added to that the number of investers who are willing to rent to almost anyone who " they believe" will pay a rent it is difficult to see a posative future for roda and these factors have led us into the realms of "none completers on phase 4" which is a great shame because imho all of these things could have been avoided with proactive management and honesty and communication from calidona !

perhaps i can tempt fair dues "a man of property for many years" who is posative on all things calidona  to purchase some units for long term investment ?

Thanks Debbie.

    You're right about reposessions, but I don't have any figures. In a nutshell, these aptmnts can NEVER cover their ongoing costs even with 3-4 months of bookings, due to the fact that we all paid far too much in the first place and ongoing maintenance costs are crazy. Roda's owners/managers simply could not care less about we Brits, we're simply milch-cows and, having paid, we're now expendable. As a place to go on holiday I suppose it's OK for once or twice, more if you're a golf ball basher, but if I never see it again, it'll be far too soon! I'm arranging the big clear out and have just received some excellent pearls of wisdom re the the 'Big Goodbye'. So It's a van to Roscoff, 1100 miles, load up and cruise back thru La France spending some time on the way back. Except for all the bad bits, Roda COULD be OK, but it will take many years and a collapse in the euro to make any real improvement, plus contract prices per se must drop dramatically. So no hotel, no saunas, no supermarkets,- nothing, not even an access from phase3 to the clubhouse. Plenty of forgotten, broken promises. I view the whole thing this way.- For years I have been carrying a large and expensive sack of rubbish around, ie a Roda apartment, and when I finally put it down, the relief is pure joy. My £50k+ is history, the Roda clever B*****s have it  all and now I haven't. It's worth far more than that to be FREE.

          As an aside Communidad P21 is blessed with Snr Ruiz and Snra Ballate who have kicked out the likes of Thyssen, who not only underperformed, but even failed to turn out to release a trapped lady!!!, ( No spik eengleesh, you call security- they have key!) and they charged £40 maintenance per lift per week!. When booted they wrote to all the owners squealing about how good they were. The new lift people are EXCELLENT, substantially less expensive, and responded to a call out in MINUTES!! The gardening also improved dramatically and most of the imbecilic lights under every tree are now OFF. If all the communidads had  a Snr Ruiz costs would fall very rapidly, but nearly all the others have simply renewed the existing contracts and continually get shafted, preferring the status quo and to not 'rock the boat'. Daft. Cheers Rollo

 Some of you folks make me so angry.  No one forced you to buy on Roda.  It was a personal decision and as such you stood to either succeed or fail.  Had the economy thrived then you would be quids in but the world economy took a dive and unfortunately you paid the price.  Why is it everyone and everything's fault but your own?  This is the price you pay for investment.  It comes with no cast iron guarantees.  Now that things have turned sour according to you Roda and the area is everything that is bad.  The economic crash was not some dire conspiracy by Roda intended to drive you to bankruptcy.  To Hugh Man whom I think was referring to me and others when he said we had our heads in the sand I would say that I have probably been a property investor for longer than you and, having experience of buying foreign property, I have learned that things go through phases and if you hold your nerve things often improve. Publicly running down a resort where you own is self-defeating.  It often takes years to get home owner's associations to become effective and turn your resort into the kind of place you hoped it would be.   

after reading below i must say i can sympathise with rollo, but agree with donnie on a few points also.

anyone who bought anywhere abroad, never mind roda, with the idea of making a quick easy profit or letting all year to cover all costs was in my opinion a bit naive.

investing in property has always been classed as long term investment. of course global economics has not helped in recent years but as with any investment in bad times , you either buckle down for the long haul or cut and run.

as for slating the developement , well i think that in part is sour grapes as ive not met anyone over there who does not like the place.

yes there can always be improvements as in most places, but for the time and age of complex i personally think its in pretty good shape.

comunities grow and mathure and will learn from mistakes (such as Snr Ruiz below) and at the end of the daythose who can last the distance will be rewarded im sure.

i for one feel reassured every time i come home from roda that i have made a good long term investment, and im looking forward to going back again next month.

Hear hear Arky!

This thread needs to terminated before we all throw ourselves under a train. It is what it is and bleating about it will not solve anything. This forum should be a 'go to site' for helpful, useful information not a platform for airing personal grievences. We all feel for you Rollo but there are a lot of others in a similar situation.

I am sure that there are plenty of people who read this forum who would be more than willing to see if they can help or point you in the right direction. It's not perfect, but it is what it is and despite the failings of Calidona/Roda et al, the place is still standing, has a future and it is down to the owners/renters to pull together and make it work.

Good luck.

Whatman

At least people on roda have a property to sell or rent out if they wish.I went to the 3 Mollinos resort a building site, with no builders and will proberly never get built. Lots of people will loose ££££. You pay you money, you take your chances. enjoy while you can.

why does most posters appear to focus on investment , i agree with arky if you bought hoping to rent out and cover costs perhaps not the best of ideas , ( if its bad now what will it be like when interest rates return to normal levels ?)

some of us bought for a lifestyle choice on a 5 * gated and secure resort with leisure facalaties such as spa gym etc   " it is down to owners and renters to make it work " (ridiculas)  imho it is down to calidona to provide the facalaties as advertised and the quality commensurate with the price point of its apartments .

cracks in buildings , flooded car parks , damp store rooms and lack of facalaties are simply not acceptable if you completed without the facalaties in place or written confermation of when they would be in place and you believe you paid a fair price for the product then good luck to you !  

some people simpy want what they were sold and are expected to pay for nothing to do with the investment as long term (ie 15-20 years ) it may well come right .