The reality is a very sobering one I'm afraid. There is an enormous difference in what you buy as 'built size' and what you end up with as 'usable space'. I have learnt the hard way as have all the purchasers at Casares del Sol. The motto is 'Buyer Beware'
The reality is this. Say you buy an apartment of 80 sq. mts.This is what the developer calls 'Built size' and is what is stated in your contract. It includes:
1) an element of communal space which is your proportion of the area OUTSIDE your apartment and can be as much as 10% or more of you property size of 80 sq.mts
2) the surface area that the walls, both external and internal rest on. This can be as much as 4 to 5 sq. mts.
3) the developer is allowed by law, by that I mean that you would not be able to mount a successful legal challenge, to under build by up to 5% of the built size.
So, this means that you could end up, quite legally, with an apartment of about 60sq.mts of usable internal space.
Of course no Spaniard would ever buy a property 'Off Plan' without requesting the 'usable space' size. It's only us stupid foreigners that don't even know the right questions to ask.
Similarly no developer in his right mind will advise the prospective purchaser of this fact because they would never sell their pokey apartments.
Also it seem that no lawyers on the Costa del Sol wish to inform their foreign clients of this fact, despite earning a good living from the foreigners who have been buying property in this area for about 40 years or more.
We don't even get a translation of the initial private contract that binds us to the sale unless we want to pay an exhorbitant price for one. There are 527 apartments on CDS. Do you not think that Interlaken could have provided a free translation as standard? No, of course not because they don't want their buyers to fully understand what they are buying.
Well, most of these foreigners are you and I, and of course we've been suckered into this like lambs to the slaughter, while Cooper of MLH and his pals at Interlaken are laughing all the way to El Banco.
So, what do we do - well of course we'll be terribly British about it, we'll take it on the chin and focus our minds on the more pressing matters of preventing the break ins to our under secured apartments and accommodating all the other shortcomings these bastards have left us to resolve.