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Of course but all the more reason to give sufficient notice to people.
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AS Keith says in his post of 8th June the action groups only "found out" about the seminar that day. That does not mean that notice of the seminar was not published prior to that date, as in "sufficient notice". I hardly think the organisers would have sent a personal notice to the 600 million or so inhabitants of Europe.....
Patricia
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"The event has been advertised online, along with emails going out to those with an interest who are likely to attend, such as legal professionals and academics of international property law. "
Faro do you know who your contact point from a professional nature would have been relating to this, i.e. which legal professionals would have been informed? Perhaps it's worth enquiring from the organisers? It would be useful to know for the future so as to establish some link. Likewise if Keith's original contact was AUN, then we need to stress the importance of keeping one another swiftly informed in terms of the various "pressure groups". An essential mechanism for the future?
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IMHO and experience, the Seminar will be a 3 hour academic exercise, ‘a class for advanced discussion and research’ (OED). It could generate the germs of ideas to take forward into the public arena – or it could degenerate into a pointless talking shop. None of the speakers are familiar to me, so it’s difficult to judge how to effectively approach them.
If it is a good/useful seminar it will be a thoughtful and constructive process. It is not an arena for demonstrations and noise.
Yes, I will be sending my two penn’orth, but only to make the organisers aware of the work that has been done and is ongoing. It will be two paragraphs in total. I will press the two issues that I have taken to David Lidington. If they choose to make use of that information, that’s fine.
The Seminar is being arranged by the Lib Dems in Brussels so if you are not a Lib Dem yourself, an academic or lawyer or politician engaged or briefed in property issues then, of course, you will not have heard of the seminar.
ruth
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Thanks Ruth. Let's see what comes from this.... and thanks again for all your endeavours.
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All this optimism is overwhelming!!
Patricia
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Patricia
thanks for the details on Mr. Tremosa.
Of course we are optomistic. We know we are in the right, with an enormous amount of evidence available to back us up. All we ask is common sense justice for those so clearly wronged and an end to abusive practice at every level. Until that is achieved, the fight will go on.
Stay together and we stay positive!
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Is anyone writing to Mr. Tremosa?
After all he is here on the ground in the country, so to speak.
Patricia
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Several Conservative MEPs put out an open letter from which this article has been quoted. This is a massive over exageration with lots of errors. People run intio trouble in Spain because they do not get the correct legal advice before buying in Spain if any legal advice at all. Many buyers leave their brains at the airport when buying property abroad. Britain has a very good and effective legal system which I believe is almost a world leader in it's land law and transparency. Less than 0.5% of people in the UK conduct a house purchase or sale without a solicitor although you can very easily. Why do lots of foreign buyers in Spain and other countries do so. The system in Spain is none the less also quite straight forward and their oplanning laws more straight forward than in the UK. What people must remember there are millions of foreigners living in Spain totally happy and content with their lives and their property purchases. The vast majority of the unhappy people will have not conducted the relevant checks before buying a property. There will be a very small minority who are totally innocent victims who carried out all the research and instructed a registered solicitor but still had problems.
The list you should always ask for is
A copy of the nota simpla.......this proves the property has been accepted and approved by the land registry.
A copy of the escritura....deeds.
A copy of the Catastral inscription.....a description of what is registered in the town hall.
A copy of the normativas for that area....planning regulations one one piece of paper that state exactly what you should be able to build on the land.
Do a personal search at the town hall to see if there are outstanding planning complaints (expedientes).
First licence of occupation if applicable known in Spanish as the Licencia de Primera Occupacion
If all these are correct then no "retrospective planning laws" can be applied. This is a myth and lies. The only time your property can be touched if all that paperwork is in order is if there is a project for development in the area and the town hall approve the project on the grounds that it is good for town as a whole. One small land owner cannot stop a large project ( or hold it to blackmail for an exorbitant price) if it is deemed to be good for the town. When this happens (similar to a compulsory purchase for road or rail type schemes in the UK) the owner of said property will be asked if he want to partake in the development, sell his land to the developers, be compensated or contribute to the new infrastructure facilities ( roads, lighting, water , sewage, electricity etc). The owner of the land will benefit from an increase in value from these facilities. Yes it appears unfair but similar things happen in the UK and all over the world ( siting of out of town shopping centres, wind turbine machines, power plants etc).
There can be problems when buyers do not follow this procedure. For example if the town hall grants a licence which is outside the normal criteria for an area and that is subsequently revoked by the Regional Government. However if you follow all these guidelines then situations with future problems should in the majority be avoided. I feel sorry for people who have been conned by crooks or who have lost money through ignorance of the law but that does not make Spain a bad place to buy. You can buy Title insurance to insure against these problems or better still use an agent who includes title insurance as confidence reassurance for buyers.
_______________________
Julie
www.wisemovetospain.com
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Julie
I am confused about what is your personal view and what is a quote from the letter. Can you clarify please.
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jek
we have seen this this sort of thing before. It smacks of desperation from someone with a financial motive stronger than their conscience. With so much evidence to the contrary, I think most on here will work out what that post is really about. Everyone has a right to voice their opinion though, and it has to be that way.
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Julie says:
"The vast majority of the unhappy people will have not conducted the relevant checks before buying a property. There will be a very small minority who are totally innocent victims who carried out all the research and instructed a registered solicitor but still had problems.
"
There is some truth in this, even if I might not apply the adjective "vast".
And she says:
"I feel sorry for people who have been conned by crooks or who have lost money through ignorance of the law but that does not make Spain a bad place to buy. "
I dont think there is anything particularly "desperate" about these opinions or statements. I hold no brief for Julie, and perhaps she can tell us if her motives for voicing the views in her post are financial.
Patricia
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Patricia,
Your sympathy and support for Julie is misplaced.
The reason why I asked whether she was expressing her own views or those of Conservative MEPs was because I would expect nothing better from either Conservative MEPs or from an Andalucian estate agent. The vast majority of estate agents in Andalucia see their clients as nothing more than walking credit cards and have as their primary objective inducing them to sign a contract and pay the deposit on a property with their favourite developer so that they can receive their commission which can be anything from 10 to 20% of the purchase price. With the biggest estate agent – MRI – jobs for sales staff depended on hitting sales targets. It is because estate agents are so bad that the Junta de Andalucia introduced a law regulating estate agents and introducing fines for those who continued to abuse their clients.
I accept that some buyers get carried away and behave foolishly and, sadly, must pay the price. But it is simply disingenuous to say that “People run intio trouble in Spain because they do not get the correct legal advice before buying in Spain if any legal advice at all.” They cannot be expected to know that the legal advice they get is incorrect. And as the article itself points out, diy conveyancing is not difficult but you need to have fluent Spanish or a trustworthy interpreter and to follow the fairly simple system – for resales. For off-plan properties, that just isn’t true and no-one should ever try diy for off-plan. And that’s where almost all the problems arise.
“The vast majority of the unhappy people will have not conducted the relevant checks before buying a property.” Absolute rubbish based on no evidence. The vast majority of unhappy people bought off-plan from a developer through an English estate agent. And the vast majority used a lawyer, and often a lawyer recommended by that same estate agent who then received a commission from that lawyer. And what did that lawyer do for 1% of the purchase price plus IVA (average over €2,000)? Check the nota simple and sort the escritura with the notary. Did they check for the legality of any licences issued by the ayuntamiento? Of course not. If they had, there would not have been a problem.
I don’t know whether Julie is just being naive or being deliberately disingenuous again but getting a copy of the nota simple does NOT tell you that the Property Registry has “approved” the property. It simply says that there is an escritura and that the transfer taxes were paid. And the deeds only reflect what the parties put in them. The notary will NOT check whether all the licences are kosher.
“There can be problems when buyers do not follow this procedure. For example if the town hall grants a licence which is outside the normal criteria for an area and that is subsequently revoked by the Regional Government. However if you follow all these guidelines then situations with future problems should in the majority be avoided.” I don’t expect Conservative MEPs to know what they are talking about. And I do expect estate agents to mislead in order to get sales. But this is just criminally negligent rubbish. Tell that to the Priors in Vera Pueblo in Almeria. Tell that to the hundreds of people who paid deposits in the Almanzora Country Club in Almeria which virtually every English estate agent had on their books and was promoted like mad with commissions at 15%+. Thousands of innocent victims; and their fate trivialised by an estate agent!!
So the bottom line is that if you have bought in Spain in the last five years, you are likely to be ok if you bought a resale property. But if you bought off-plan through an English estate agent using a lawyer – particularly one recommended by that same estate agent – and had no problems, my advice is to go out and buy a lottery ticket straightaway. You are one of the lucky ones.
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Hello to all:
I did not know Julie was/is a property agent. Is she?
It is indeed true, unfortunately, that many property agents in Spain (and no doubt in other countries too) are less than ethical and professional. That particular sector is in need of regulation. As for the commissions, well, that is part of the business.
I don't think luck comes into it. I never bought a property in Spain myself. My (Spanish) husband did the buying and the transaction, even though I would be perfectly capable of doing so myself. And, guess what, we used the services of a solicitor. It would never have occurred to us to buy off plan. Personally I would advise against it. As the Spanish saying goes: "lo barato sale caro".
I am very well aware of the conveyancing process, of the documentation required, the searches which need to be done, and the caution which needs to be exercised. Over the decades I have lived in Spain I have never ceased to be amazed by the number of people who - penny wise pound foolish - decided to go it alone with a solicitor, and got themselves tangled up.
I am NOT saying this is the case with those who have encountered the dreadful problems described in this forum and it would be unkind, to say the least, to trivialise their situation.
Patricia
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Patricia,
It's not rocket science. Just click on the link beneath her signature. You'll notice a website without a "who are we"" section. That in itself speaks volumes.
So you have never bought anything. Your Spanish husband does it all for you. And, of course, if you've got a Spanish husband, he won't be using English estate agents cos he'll be buying stuff that will never go through an estate agent but which will be known in the Spanish community by virtue of word of mouth. But you do do conveyancing for English folk (for a fee I imagine) so you know that it can be done by someone with no qualifications - or are you a qualified abogado? But, of course, all this relates to resales. That's not where the problem lies for the thousands of cheated Brits. And your experience on resales doesn't read across.
Nevertheless, based on absolutely no experience in that field, you would advise the millions of people who have successfully and happily bought off plan not to do so. Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh? And presumably you (and Julie) would argue that those who did buy off-plan with the knowledge that there was a bank guarantee in place should anything go wrong and using a lawyer and advised by their friendly English estate agent, were just palin stupid to trust an estate agent, a developer, a bank and a lawyer all of whom advised that the guarantee was kosher. Just read the threads on here about bank guarantees that were no guarantee at all.
My sympathies lie with ads and Keith and the rest - apart from when they whinge about "I'm all right Jack Brits" which does them no favours, alienates people they should be seeking as friends and fails to understand real life - and wish them luck in getting a result. But I don't see it happening any time soon. But anyone who seeks to defend the Spanish in this isn't for real.
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 Well said again Jek.
_______________________
Poppyseed
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Oh well, it is "bash Patricia" day, is it? LOL.
What on earth is wrong Jek? I have not been rude to anyone so why should I put up with rudeness. I have no intention of going anywhere, and I think I do try to be helpful when I can, both in real life and on here.
No I do not carry out conveyancing. In fact I/we also bought a house in U.K. in which case I dealt with most aspects of the transaction, and I used the services of a solicitor. And no my Spanish husband does not do everything for me LOL. He'd be the first to tell you the sort of independent lady I am LOL.
I also have sympathy for those who got "caught". I wish I had a magic wand whereby they would all be compensated for their experience and an even bigger magic wand to turn the Spanish system into the kind of system they want.
As for Rocket science, Jek, well no I have not yet taken up that discipline LOL. 
Isn't it amazing how nasty these threads can turn.
Patricia
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