Property refurbishment - advice

Hello jeffrothe2nd,

I have herd about this habitational licence, and I am not sure if this is in place or not yet, I hope to find out more in the coming week. Some friends of ours moved into a property when the utilities were still registered to the builder (builders supply), they did not have to pay for any utility bills until the whole development had been finished and signed off. This meant that the builder picked up the tab up to that point.

Hi all,

We have recieved the date for the notary for compleation, it is friday 15th june our flights are booked and we cannot wait to get there. .Our solicitor has confirmed that the habitational licence will be in place as the bank will not release the mortgage unless it is.I will let you all know how it goes and will take lots of pictures. We will be staying for a week in june and then for 17 days at the begining of august and hopefully get back out for a week in october. Will anyone else be over around these dates ?maybe meet up for a beer.

We also hope to rent it out to friends, trying to figure out what to charge and wether to use a management company etc.

Is anyone getting the builders to install the air conditioning if so what are they charging? We were told by our agents that it would be cheaper to get someone in to install it but it would still cost about 2500.

Hope to see you all soon

David

We have just flown back this morning after a weeks glorious weather. As far as the building work is concerned we are told the phases (Escaleras) are being completed as follows

1  Complete

2  Complete

3 & 4 Completed July 2007 although we noted that the properties in 3 were actually being cleaned and appeared to be completed already as of yesterday (31st May) 

5 & 6 Completed October 07

There are still 13 units to sell and the north side (5 & 6) is very much a building site at the moment. The available units are spread about the complex with some ready to move into now.

The man on the ground there is called Diego and he advises that the above schedule is pessimistic and they should be ahead of this by a couple of weeks. At present the rendereing is still to be done on 5 & 6 and this is creating a lot of dust around the pool area. That being said they are progressing the pool and it could well be operational come the end of this month.

Re the occupancy licence out solicitor would not us complete until this was available and I can only assume that this is issued on each phase. We have all amenities in our apartment and they are at the builders cost I am advised until the whole complex is completed.

The car park is completed for 1,2 &3 however you cannot get access yet as the main road which runs down the east side is not completed and is still fenced off.

Diego has been a really helpful and has sorted us out with extra lighting(external) and extractor fans for the bathroom (they are not included in the price) 25 euros each from a local merchants.

Possibly a little bias however the fit and finish of our apartment is excellent and the whole complex is going to be very nice indeed.

I am also advised that all bar one of the apartments sold thus far have been to UK residents, 1 spanish family only so far. Diego seems to think quite a few from Leeds (not far from us)  

We have some more uptodate pictures which I am unable to attach, if you provide me with an E Mail address I shall be happy to forwrd.

Nick & Deb  

Hi Nick and Deb

Thanks for all the info sounds like it will be great, I' ll pm you my e-mail address if you could send me some photos

Thanks Dave

Hi John and Diane,

Looks like everything is coming together now

Myself ,Vanessa and our 2 kids will be over from 3rd august to 20th august hope to see you then.

David

Hi Nick and Deb

Thanks for all the up-to-date info.  It sounds like we may complete earlier than we thought. Does Diego speak much English? I was hoping to practice my Spanish whilst over there. I have pm'd you my email address and look forward to seeing some pics.

John

I'll be interest to know about the air con as its probably the first thing we will be doing.  I think we've got similar size apartments so any info would be very useful

Angie

Diego speaks very good English and has been helping me with my Spanish. Just on the air con front there are air con units being installed on the terraces on the roof. I asked Diego about these but he was not sure about costs for connecting. I will try again when we go back out in a few weeks. There is an aircon shop in Almoradi where they speak English and a brief visit there left me with the impression that they are very helpful. On the ground floor of the shopping centre behind Carrefour in Torrevieja there is a DIY store and I noted they had mobile plug in aircon units for sale at about 350 euros. Not sure which way to go yet so if anyone gets any news I would be interested to hear.   

Nick W

Hi all,

Just recieved an e-mail from my solicitor saying the builder wants us to bring 900 euro in cash to the notary when we are compleating next week . He says this is to cover property maintanence, this seems fairly expensive  has anyone else been asked to do this

See you all soon

Thanks

Dave

HI Dave,

We too have been told that we have to pay this 900 euros, so looks like it is the same for all.

Thanks for that ,

got an update from my solicitor saying the 900 is for connection to the water and electricity and also for maintanence until a community is formed. He also said the water and electric companies will make a charge by direct debit from your bank account for initial installation.

Dave

Hi all

Just back after completing everything went very well and had no problems, the weather was wonderfull but to hot at night without aircom, we were in the apartment for 4 days without it. The aircom system we got cost 2500 euro and is guranteed for 5 years, it is installed above the ceiling tiles in the bathroom, you can get other systems from about 1100 euro.

When we were leaving they had started work around the pool, as mentioned before Diago is living in the apartments until about Febuary, he speaks good english and is very helpful and will get any jobs you need doing done.

June and Dave

There are some apartments that have security grills up already and alot of companies seem to do them, I have the name and number of one of them which I will post tomorrow as I do not have it with me at the moment.

Dave and Vanessa

Hi all

June & Dave

There is a company called Joost Security Group, they do air conditioning, security grills, mosquito blinds etc. , they installed my air conditioning and were very professional. The managers name is arthur and he speaks english if you want their phone number just pm me.

Anyone interested in using public transport there is a bus stop on the road into town with buses going to Alicante, Guardamar, Torrevieja, Orihuela and Elche. The timetable for the buses can be found in the window of the travel agents shop which is about 20 yards further down the road towards town.

There is a guy called Chris who runs a taxi service he is very friendly and helpful. He has an 8 seater mini bus and charges 30 euro for a pickup from Alicante airport and 40 euro for a pickup from Murcia and 20 euro for a return trip to Guardamar or Torrevieja, not bad if there is a few people to share the cost. He also has an english supermarket in Almoradi and also runs a property managment company.

See you all soon

David & Vanessa

Hi Everyone!

We have just stumbled across this website and are very impressed with what we have read so far and also noticed how friendly and helpful everyone appears to be. 

We are Gord and Clare from Kent and we are waiting for completion on a place in Escalera 3!  We were originally told it would be ready end of May to early June and a couple of months ago was told it would possibly be end of July, this came as no surprise to us really, but would love to just get in and get everything sorted.

Would appreciate any phone numbers etc., for aircon and security grills and anything else.   Also someone mentioned a guy called Colin who is going to set up a cleaning company out there and we would be very interested in this also although we are going to us it as a holiday home and rent to family and close friends only.

If anyone has got photo's other than those that Iberian post onto the client access site, would you mind emailing them to us on gordon@squires89.fsnet.co.uk

We have opted to use Iberian's solicitor - is this a good move?

We are now feeling alot more upbeat having read all the posts on this forum. 

Look forward to hearing from any of you.

Regards

Gord and Clare