Buying an apartment on Terrazas de las Torre Golf Resort

Hi , I used Moneycorp for the initial purchase and have used transferwise since, both give a good service and beat bank rates hands down.

Hi 

We used TorFX to transfer our money for apartment purchase. However for moving money to pay bills, etc we use a Halifax Clarity credit card as they make know charges for withdrawals from foreign ATM's. They give very close to wholesale rate as well.  With a daily limit of €600 you can quickly top up your Spanish bank account at no extra cost, particularly if you pay the Halifax card of the same day by online transfer. We've moved enough this way to buy a car. 

​If you are still looking for a good bank Sabadell have been good, clear English comes, plus a great app. 

​Jim 271 1A 

TransferWise seems to be the cheapest and simplest once you've got a Spanish bank account to transfer the money to.

I would caution using a broker to keep your money until you are ready to purchase a property unless you are 100% sure your money is protected. I am aware of people who have lost most of their savings when purchasing this way and I lost about £3000 when changing holiday money.

New panic!

Non Resident Tax........is that something I have allowed for in the calculations of €200 per month to cover the running costs of buying an apartment as in service charges community charges equivalent to council tax etc or is this a new beast to add to the list?

I have been reading another thread and now worrying again lol

Polly

Just got my first non-resident tax bill (IBI). Was €77 for the year. The accountant's fees were more!

Amardlin........not sure if you heard the sigh of relief from there but I think all my neighbours did here!

i think for now I have covered the serious side of buying (until I read another thread that whips me into  a frenzy) and thank you to everyone who has contributed to smoothing the waters - I am very grateful.  Seems that you have a real community over there and this has been almost like meeting you in advance.  I really hope if some of you are around on the 10/9 to 21/9 we get a chance to meet you in person.

In the meantime I plan in focusing in the nicer side if our trip and looking into Spanish restaurants in which to dine, beaches which arent too touristy (yes I know I'm a tourist) and points of interest that we shouldn't miss on our ten days stay so any advice in this direction would also be appreciated, we have purchased the obligatory books on Murcia which make all of the sight seeing worthwhile but there is only so much we can fit into ten days plus apartment hunting.

i have also had a few PM letting me know that people are selling their propeties on Terrazas.  I'm not sure whether it would be the done thing for us to look at these without going through an Agent in Spain but if it doesn't break any rules we are more than happy to do so. Just let us know.

Thank you all so much for your continued help.

Polly

Absolutely go look at apartments of people not using agents (mine's now sold, so no skin in the game any more), as the agents don't add a lot of value and do take a LOT of commission.

As for restaurants, my two favourites are Gateway to India in Roldan and Bacchus (Swedish) which is in Los Alcazares near the arches.

http://www.taxesonline.es/

Hello

I second the recommendation for Cath and Andy at the Golf Property Store (world wide web. polarisworld .org .uk). Omit the spaces. We've just completed on a resale at La Tercia United Golf. Andy and Cath will tell you everything you need to know about the buying process and will be completely honest with you. 

They're working with DFS to sort furniture delivery, the solicitor for utilities and are also going to sort organising the locks being changed. Excellent after sales service. Estate agent fees were included in the property price.

all the best

Heather

Hi Polly,

I have a spreadsheet of all costs incurred in buying and furnishing our property which I am more than happy to share. I'm also happy to share the monthly/quarterly charges for electricity, water, internet, community fees etc.

If you are interested, send me a private message with your email address and I will forward all the info.

GCEN are best in respect of For Exchange, their rates always beat TOR FX, Transferwise and Moneycorp, and no charges

If interested PM me

Kind Regards

Kevin

Morning Kevin - any advice is welcome.  Thank you!

Hi Polly

Firstly Cath and Andy are great, and furniture from DFS is good as they know how everything fits into the apartment as been doing this for years.

In relation to white goods and lights there is a great shop in Roldan called Electro Regalos , they deliver free connect everything and will put up your lights.

If you have any questions always happy to help, I have been on Terrazas since 2011 and love the place. Great community.

In relation to currency exchange GCEN are excellent and you can also buy forward if you know when you are completing etc. Let me know if interested and I will get an account manager to phone you

Kind Regards

Kevin


 

As an alternative to DfS, who we found were on the expensive side and a bit too much "we know what you want", we used ikea and Leroy Merlin in Murcia and other local stores. We rented a van via hertz/24 at about £45. In addition we sent a half pallet of various items from home for £180, which for over 100kg, was great value. This way we managed the costs better, but it does take a bit more research and sorting. 

Jim 

Jim

I'd be interested to find out more about who you used for shipping the pallet of goods over, and dimensions of the pallet.

thanks

Caroline

Thank you Kevin and Jim and everyone else who has helped us on this journey.

we hadn't thought about using a pallet and will be looking into that.  Would be grateful if you could let us know whether the pallet was dropped off on site or whether you collect your belongings somewhere else?

we have spent the evening trying to book flights having watched them on Skyscanner.  Well we learnt the hard way  Ryanair doesn't take too much notice of Skyscanner and vice versa but it's another lesson learned.   Unfortunately we were unable to get on the 10th flights so are now booked on the 13th and staying in Terrazas for 10 days.

we have checked we have swimming bands lol.

thank you to everyone for all your help and we really hope to meet some of you as we are assuming there is somewhere on site where we can get some sort of refreshment!

Murcia here we come!

We used pallet2ship.co.uk for our pallet, this is basically a retail arm for palletways. They collected it from our house and six days later it was dropped off in the car park outside our apartment. You can even track where it is on the journey. You can choose between a quarter, half or full pallet. All are on standard 1 x 1.1m pallet, it's just the height and weight that change. We bought a pallet box that fitted exactly, allowing us to fill it with small boxes and a range of items, we even safely moved two mirrors.

We found this was a great way of sending out some things we had spare at home, plus items that we could only buy in the UK but would find difficult to get in Spain. We more than covered the cost of sending it by taking this approach. 

Jim 

Thank you Jim, that's really useful to know

Caroline

Polly , we have an apartment on Terraza that we would  sell or rent to you for a year to see if you liked it. We love the place and are going over next week for 14 days but due to work commitments we cant spend as much time there as we would like so we were thinking of renting long term or selling. message me if you want more info. Tom lynch