Habitation licence

Stevie, I would tend to agree with Tish on this. I know nothing about Parador, maybe others here do and can advise on their reliability etc., but I would try to clarify with them exactly what paperwork is in order. If the LFO has been issued, I wonder why it would take 4 weeks to arrange anything? Notaries normally only need a couple of days notice to make an appointment for signing deeds, and if the developer has the necessary "boletins" to get the utlities connected, I can't see why that would take so long either. Although, this is Spain......

Good luck, but proceed with caution.

Hi Tish , Roberto.

 I think parador need four weeks notice to assign an aftersales rep to hold our hand for the day, after all thats what we paid the aftersales money for , but yes the advice you  have both given me has sunk in thanks. ............Is it just people on this website untrustworthy or what?. .....is there anybody had any good or happy experiences on site or is it all doom and gloom,  c,mon we could all do with cheering up while we're all waiting, Has anyone else had the completion papers on R4 and does it include the (LFO)...? 

We're not all doom and gloom.

I've read lots of happy posts and I have found loads of good estate agents on the Costa Blanca.

Laury

Stevie, don't get disheartened, go look in http://www.eyeonspain.com/forums/threads.aspx?&dev=FB41 for the happy stories. I've never looked there myself, 'cos I'm just another rubber-necker who enjoys the disaster stories so much more than the sickly sweet smiley happy people  (not you, Smiley!) who can't stop chirping on about how fandabbydosey life is on their little cloud. Oh yes, and I also like the idea that I may just be able to offer someone a useful snippet of info or advice as a result of my own experiences, which might make their life a little bit easier, 'cos, well, that's just the kind of chimp I am! I figure that by doing so, when I need an answer to something new, somebody else might come and scratch my back for me!

All the best.

I got a letter from Parador to tell tell me the certificates had come through and to get over ASAP to sign.

Filled with excitement we booked flights and informed Parador.

Then we had an email from my mortgage provider who told me that the LFO was not in place and they could not grant a mortgage until there was one.

Of course, annoyed at losing my flights I emailed Parador who told me it was normal to get a mortgage without an LFO and it was just my bank being the problem. I can see here that it is not my bank and if there is paperwork missing then it is not complete.

Very annoyed

Steve

Thanks for replying Rosi n

I got onto Banco Santander to push for the go ahead with the LFO. The lady told me another certificate, 'the completion certificate' was missing and they need that one?

What is a 'completion certificate?'

Thanks

Ste1

For a property to be completed it has to be acceptable as a building and within planning permission. Very briefly, the Architect provides the Building Completion Licence through his Colegio, which confirms that the building has been completed in compliance with the building regulations. Sometime! errors are subsequently found and the licence has to be reviewed retrospectively. That licence is then submitted to the Town Hall who then review the property and confirm that all is correct within the planning process by issuing a First Occupation Licence (FOL). (Habitation Certificate). Only then can the property have its own individual connection to the water and electricity supplies. A developer, no matter what the contract states, cannot force anybody to pay for their property if it does not have its FOL. There can be months of delays in obtaining that, not being the developers fault, but due to under staffing at the Town Hall. Some developers have tried using the policy of 'Administrative Silence' to obtain the FOL. This is a quirk of the Spanish law where if an administration does not reply to a request within three months, that request can be assumed to be approved. However, there are big questions as to whether that applies to FOL's and if the authorities do eventually inspect the property for any reason and find it doesn't comply, the assumed FOL will be invalidated. Best not to sign on the basis of that. Then their is the Catastral inspection that confirms the details of the property and registers it in the town Hall for local rates equivalent IBI and other tax matters. etc, etc.

Hi Ste 1,

i will explain Paradors procedures (as an insider who no longer works for them).  Once their Progress department have seen that the property appears essentially completed they inform the Client Liaison Team (these are the ones you have been speaking to since you paid your 10%). They then send you a letter letting you know that the property is completed.  It should say in the letter that you should not book your flights.  The client liaison Team will then pass a "completions authorisation" form to the completions dept. It is then the completions departments responsibility to contact the builder and confirm that the "obra nueva" (new build certificate), "seguro decenal" (10 year building guarantee) and the "celdula de Habitabilidad" (habitation certificate) are in place. This can take absolutely AGES, depending on your constructor. The builders are desperate to complete and sometimes lie.  Which is a huge problem because if you have a mortgage, and the builder cannot prove to the bank that everything is in place, then you will NOT sign, the bank will veto it. 

Once the completions department confirm that all the documents are ready they will tell the Client Liaision Team who will then send you another letter asking you to book your flights and come out for the signing.  You should not have received this letter if the documents are not in place unless the builder lied to Parador about what documents they actually had.  But once this letter is received this is when you need to give the four weeks notice.  The completions department only have 11 aftersales reps on the road and in high seasons, the diaries they use get booked up extremely quickly and as Parador are understaffed at the mo, you may even be double booked (be warned.)  You are entitled to two days with a rep...usually the day before and the day of the signing. You will get no more help after this no matter how much you complain, they will wash their hands of you.

Parador will help you do a snag list with the builder (they should go back to the property 6weeks later to see if the snags have been done, but you will have to chase their completions department on this as this is not often done as a few of the aftersales reps are pretty lazy, I could name names but I won't) Once these 6 weeks are up and you still have snagging to be done...guess what you get to the privilage of speaking to the builder yourself.

I would suggest that you contact you client liaison advisor to ask why you were sent a letter requesting you to come out to sign and book flights (make sure you didn't receive the letter telling you not to book any flights because Parador will tell you that it is your own fault that you lost flights, hang up the phone and then laugh at you.) But if you were told to book flights then kick up a fuss, demand to speak to a manager and then you might get some form of compensation, btw don't expect a manager to call you back, thats unlikely to happen, either send a recorded delivery letter, go to the office or just refuse to get off the phone till you speak to a manager.  Btw, any compensation will usually be in the form of a furniture voucher from Linea Torrehogar (pretty cr*ppy quality furniture).

Good luck.

Hi alannah

Thanks for all the information and sorry for just getting back to you as I've just noticed your advice.

To let you know that I did not chase Parador over the bungle and I did get the letter to book flights asap to sign up.

To tell you the truth, The Bank of Santander have given me more information and advice as to what is happening than Parador or the abogados.

I now know that the LFO has been granted at last and the bank are or have valued the house. Fingers crossed all will be sorted very soon.

Once again, thanks

Ste1

From all that I read it seems that a certificate of habitation (cedula de habitabilidad) is required before Electricity or Water can be taken off builders supply and connected. No one in our Urbanisation (70 houses), has received this certificate and the Ayuntamiento confirms that none have been issued yet we were talken off builders supply and connected to Electricity and Water 5 months ago, good thing too given the unreliability of the builders supply. Is this in fact normal?

Confused!!

By the sound of it this is good news. There are various reasons why the final licece doenst get issued, but if they are minor ones, then the local town hall will look at it as being an admin thing and carry on with legalizing everything.

Your lawyer would be best advised to actually find out the latest situation, but it does sound like its on its way!

I don't know about any other properties, off-plan or otherwise, anywhere else in Spain but be careful on rural caves in Granada. The Esate Agent (** EDITED - Against forum rules **) knew very well the one I bought had no CH (cedula de habitabilidad) & tried to remove power & water clauses I had included in the sale contract, then hid behind the fact that most rural caves don't have a CH. ** EDITED - Against forum rules ** disappeared the moment I signed at the Notary Public but everyone else, including the mayor, is trying to do their best to get my cave "legal". According to the Town Hall, I'm far from the only foreigner this scam's been pulled on. My lawyer's providing full support luckily but when this story's over -- one way or the other -- I'll be going after ** EDITED - Against forum rules **. You'll be seeing me again, ** EDITED - Against forum rules **

 We have been waiting 3.5 years for our Habitation Certificate, 16 of the 44 apartments on the complex are privatly owned.  The builder signed the complex off as complete and claimed all the monies that were held by the Notary to complete our site. We still wait for the local government to sort this out after 3.5 years. The Bank own 20 apartments taken as a debt from the builder. The builder has several tenants renting some of the apartments he still owns.

We have no utility meter's & community fees are €60 a month. The Horizontal law says that without a Habitation Certificate we are not permitted to reside in our apartment. non national owners spend annual holidays in their apartment's. 

Our problems are small when so many people have lost their investments in Spanish property, through the poor service of lawyers & agents that hid many problems when purchasing property in Spain yet charged the full fees and continue to trade without  being corrected by the Spanish Governing  Bodies. I wonder how many years we still have to wait dispite paying administration fees for a company to sort this out.

Yes, the Ayuntimento's saying it will cut off my mains supplies (power & water), fortunately a matter of indifference to me, but not for those who put their life savings into a property in which they cannot legally live, I instructed -- & may well instruct again -- my lawyer to sue but he feels there are "grey areas" so I'll take up the cause myself. Anyone thinking of buying through ** EDITED - Against forum rules **, please contact me; I have the total scam by email & will be only too happy to pass it on+