Lost the lot!

Hey Rollo

I was in a similiar position 8 months ago and after doing a load of homework decided to give the keys back to the bank (about 2 months ago).

To be honest it was pretty easy and straight forward except for the actual day where there was a heap of running around to do but that was mainly because the bank didn't tell me what I had to do prior to the signing day.

I love Roda location and like the development and most of the people but the reality is that it was costing me £10k per year. Rentals were sporadic, mortgage was high and once management fees, advertising and community fees were paid I had a 10k deficit in 2009. This didn't cover the maintenance either which was probably another grand.

Anyway, if I had paid cash I would have just ridden out the storm but simply asked myself - if Roda is gonna turn around and deliver the facilities and reduce my costs and increase my rentals, will it be in the next 5 years?

Buying on Roda had already cost me 60k and if I hung in for another 5 years then my apartment will have cost me £110k so I just decided to cut my losses and bailed ouit. I tried to sell for 115,000 euro to just pay off the mortgage but got no serious interest so stopped paying for everything at Christmas and it all went through in April. Incidentally my bank wrote off the 4k in missing mortgage payments as part of the Dacion en Pago so they can be flexible if they want to be and thay have no comeback on shortfall either. They have accepted the return so it is now their problem.

I flogged my furniture for 2k and probably worth mentioning that I won't ever get approved for a euro mortgage again

I hired a very helpful interpreter (one of the local managers) for a couple of days and the notary and bank lawyer were very helpful and it was all translated on the day.

Don't regret it, am sad about it as the location is beautiful and the development could end up being very good but I just couldn't see it happening within the next 5 years so wrote off my 60k and in my eyes saved myself nother 50k

Am over that now as it's done and was an expensive decision to buy but not gonna let it ruin my life - bad choice, my choice, life goes on.

One word of warning though is that all debt associated with the property needs paying within 30 days of the signing of the Dacion en Pago or it is null and void and the list of people you owe is staggering - probably cost me 2 to 2500 euro to pay everything off. I visited more council offices in San Javier than I care to remember and each one produced a bill for 300 euro for the 3 years that I owned the apartment. Even had to pay tax on profit that they reckoned I could have made if I'd have sold it at the price the Town Hall values it at - Unbelievable - proper had my pants pulled down as their valuation was near 200k!!

Despite all that I do miss the place, met some good people and had some great times there and the location will never change. I hope the developer delivers some day and everyone gets what they hoped for but I just couldn't see it so pulled the plug.

Feel free to PM me if anyone wants full gory details as would be glad to help.

Hope that helps Rollo

many thanks for that factual insight big c

no takers at 115000 a very depressing scenaria , begs the question what are they really worth ?

To be fair Debbie it was only 'available' at that price for about six weeks and one of the local managers got some interest but they only wanted to pay 100k if I remember so it would have cost me 15k to sell it.

It was never advertised at that price except word of mouth by local agents/managers

I was niaive with the annual runnings costs of the property which get scary when you times them by five years.

Can't exactly remember now but I worked out I would have to rent the place out for 42 weeks a year at 300 per week to break even (although that did include capital repayment)

Never gonna happen as best year I ever had was 12 weeks and on top of that the older the place gets then the more it needs maintaining and trying to do that from the other side of Europe just makes the place a money pit.

It didn't work for me but that's not to say others can't make it work for them and like I said, if I had paid cash which I nearly did then I would have probably just locked it up, used it myself and sat tight for 5 years and probably joined one of the action groups.