News for Barclays Spain mortgage holders

Sorry to bring up this subject again!   Masa have told our estate agent that this Cert if now available, but at the same time have told our solicitor that it is not available.  Can anyone enlighten me on the current position, then perhaps I can let Masa know!!

Thanks

Hi, are you talking about M11?

Craig

It seems that a few people have now got their Hab Certs.  If you have, could you post here with your house number, so we can see if it follows any particular pattern (I doubt it though Masa being Masa).   Masa are still telling our estate agent that the Cert is available, but telling our solicitor that it's not.

Thanks

this is the reply from my solicitor when i enquired today

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Harley,

 Thank you for your email. We have recently contacted the Townhall directly ( as we were not getting any updates from Masa on that issue). We have been given the file number for block 13 ( which is 3285/07). We are being told that the Townhall is just waiting for Masa to provide them with some final paperwork so that EMUASA ( the water company gives their OK to it. We are in close touch with the Townhall and all I can tell you is that we will keep calling both, the Townhall and Masa to know how things are going.

Best regards,

Hi Rosemary, the plot thickens!  - Susana from Masa customer service (!) has just phoned me (10:00am) to ask about completion as the house is now ready for handover.  I asked her about the habitation certificates and told her that I did not want to complete without it.  Susana said there is no problem 'legally' and the Notary's wouldn't be signing handovers if it was an issue.

I asked if any certificates at all had been issued yet and she said no - none had been issued.  She couldn't say why because MASA has given all the information they have to to the town hall and that if I want an answer then I will have to ring the town hall.  Customer Service wins again! 

Hi everyone, We are getting so many different stories now it is very hard to follow.  I think the suggestion about logging everyone who has their Habitation Certificate is a great idea. Also if people can put their plot numbers on any emails we can see how the site is progressing, I believe M16, 15 and 14 are filling up, from what I have read on the site and M13 is starting. Has anyone heard anything about M54, and M53 they are on the outer perimetre and does anyone know if M12 is being release before M11?

R - M11-4

The thread

What is the responsibility of The Townhall?

 in the general forum under General Chit Chat is well worth a read.

Hi all

To repeat what has been posted earlier it looks as if some people are getting the application for a certificate of habitation mixed up with the actual certificate of habitation.

When you sign at the notary you will only get the application at the moment.

My agent was very clear stating that no certificates have been issued yet.

Its all a waiting game, still after putting pen to paper in the middle of 2004 another couple of years won't matter.

All the best

John / Wendy

To get a real example of what can happen please follow this link http://www.coastrider.net/news_main.htm and read the article Tecnologia home owners run out of water, and ideas 

Just to clarify my view, and the advice given by many legal and property experts, including the podcast on this site by Mark Wilkin of The Rights Group. you should be aware and consider carefully completing on a property that does not have an LFO

 First of all for 95% of people there is no problem and I am not suggesting that MASA are not a financially sound quality builder, but the problems start when either the builder disapears, or the builder does not pay his bills for builders supply ontime as there is no contract with the suppliers, no service level agreement and no way to get supplies connected without the LFO

Although the Certificate may have been applied for people seem to believe that the LFO is a formality, it is not, and regularly the Town Hall will ask for changes to be made to properties or more commonly the infrastructure before it is granted, in my own case it is now 3 years because the dimesion of the drainage system is not correct.

The LFO is a Certficate that says that the property is fit for purpose, legally you should not use or rent a property without one and on a TV program where issues on builders supply were being highlighted the owners were described as technically squatting

More and more banks are now refusing mortgages as this based on an accessment of risk and I do agree that that various things will be taken into account by the bank manager

Developers blame the Town Hall delays however other developers in this area and I include Polaris World, United and RODA are able to release properties with a Certificate in place, they do this by ensuring that they apply in plenty of time and do not wait to batch up the applications

We are actively involved in a group that is continuing to lobby local and national government for what we believe is a much needed change in the law that will require all property to have all licenses in place before completion can be done 

 The real people that you should get advice from is not your property agent but the lawyer acting for you as yes for 90% of people there is no problem but we really don´t want anybody extra joing the 5% club

We already have a guide to quetsions that you should be asking the developer and we will soon be publishing a document specifically about Certificate of Habitation, for a copy use the e-mail below

sgguides@inspectahomespain

We are in plot 53, I was  told 2 weeks ago my property is ready and to go over. I am not able to fly at the moment, but even if I was I would not be going.

I too signed 4 yeats ago and I am not giving them another penny without  the cert of habitation, after waiting all this time  what's another few weeks/months

Sue & Ray

hi everyone

               we  are on 53-09 and were also asked to come and sign 2 weeks ago,however our solicitor knows nothing as yet

                           regards dominick

In an interesting twist to all this, my solicitor who has always maintained it is better to wait for the habitation certificate, informed me today that he has just completed on a property for his parents - without the habitation certificate as it was taking too long !!

Ian

We signed on our Eagle on  M16 11th January 2008 and were given a habite certificate which has an official stamp.

 We were told when going through title deeds a number of the plot but it was all spanish to us the solicitors are holdign all our other docs.

There were also rails on the stairs something we knew we may need but had not arranged.

Den & Trish

Hi Den & Trish

Unless I'm mistaken, I think you may find that the piece of paper they gave you was the application for the habitation certificate with the town hall stamp on it - rather than the certificate itself.

Regards

Ian

Hi

Thanks Ian for the advice regarding the actual habite certifcate we were led to believe this was the actual document for habitation.

The date stamped on the document is 15 February 2007 which is interesting there is an authentication stamp also along with the builders.

The bank insisted on seeeing before they agreed to the mortgage.

We will be checking because it was never mentioned that we will recieve any further documents??

We will be contacting  Atlas as our agents they should have ensured everything in place before we took posession. Although we had not been expecting the electric to be connected and it was.

The solicitors also have the original documents for safe keeping.

It has been annoying as you put your trust in people like Atlas and still don't get the full picture.

We were jsut so relieved to be  completing.

Den and Trisha

Again I believe that this is a copy of the appiication rather than the actual certificate as these will normally be released for one phase at a time, never for the whole development

Please remember that they are not a formality to get, all sorts of factors come into play and I suggest people take a look at the electronic news in this weeks RoundTown News .www.roundtownnews.co.uk which has 4 stories in about urbanisations with problems in this area

I have looked around site and I cannot see any obvious reasons why they would not be issued

Unfortuantley MASA don't have a great track record in this area, do a simple websearch on Certificate of Habitation & Camposol to see the issues on the early phases but in their defence they did eventually get resolved so I would have thought that they had learnt from this experience

There is a reason why some banks will not grant a mortgage if one is not in place and many lawyers in Spain will advise you not to complete without one so please make sure that your lawyer is independant of the builder or any agent

Hello everyone.

I don't want to get people hopes up too much, but Masa phoned yesterday and said the actual habitation certificate would be in their office on Monday !!!

This may just be a ploy to get me to complete - and they have provisionally set a date for Feb 12th.

I then get an email from my solicitor about another matter but she mentions "..........as the Habitation Certificate will finally be issued by the time you sign........" - I hadn't mentioned the certificate

This all looks promising to me. Anyone else had any similar experiences

Watch this space !!!

Ian