Liberated Co-ownership

I have a beautiful 3 bed apartment in Vera,Almeria. I am struggling with mortgage payments. Total Mortgage 150,000 Euros. I would like to explore the possibility of Co-ownership with the hope that with co ownership of the mortagage we can share everything from bills to rental gains.  How do I go about seeking a "partner" where do I advertize as its a fairly specialist area. From a legal point of view is this possible. Can anybody recommend a website for me to understand this more.

Kind Regards

Teddy
 

 Not a bad idea. The bank will have to accept ( which I guess it will sue to increase of guarantees, initially, for them when another owner/ mortgage holder is added) Transfer tax of 7% of value acquired plus Notary/ Registrar costs involved.

It would also be a good business idea to have a web with offers of halves/ thirds of property ownerships.

Sanazir

This is a US import and  is commonly known as fractional ownership which in my opinion is simply timeshare under a another name.

When the property market collapsed a few thought they would give it a try but they all went out of business very quickly. One company that comes to mind was Property Revolution (took over from Andalucia Dream Homes) and they were associated with a supposedly Guernsey based outfit "the fractionalgroup". As far as I recall they were using UK companies to own the property.

But can it work? Maybe but in very limited circumstances.

Let's consider the most common fractional ownership ie Husband & Wife or an unmarried couple and we all know what happens there when they fall out! You need to anticipate disputes and also have an exit strategy for anyone wanting out.

It might work within families (ie brothers/sisters/cousins) or with very close life-long friends but I would never recommend such a structure with complete strangers.

If you are going this route then you will need specialist legal advice as there are only a handful of soliciitors who understand how this works and who can draft all the necessary agreements. To be honest I would probably favour UK law and jurisdiction and make sure all your agreements are drafted in English on the basis your co-fractional owners will be English.

If you google Spain fractional ownership you will comes across a few claiming to be involved in that market.

The reason I disliked the scheme at the time and argued it was timeshare was becuase of the management structure these companies were promoting but that would not necessarily apply with a private type arrangement.

It goes without saying beware of the timeshare re-sellers who will quickly find your advertisement and call to say they have buyers and ask for fees upfront to arrange everything - these are shark infested waters!

 The different legal " dressings" could be from a private agreement of shared use ( similar to timeshare) to real trasmission of half of ownership rights.

I do not see it as a too complicated scheme, honestly

No matter how you dress it up or what the ultimate underlying ownership or participation the problems will be identical.

This is not something to be entered into lightly.

 I agree with Faro. Anything related to rights, ownership rights in this case, should be taken lightly

This is quite an interesting thread.

One benefit of owning a property in Spain is that you can personalise it and leave all your belongings so that it becomes a home from home. But once you go down this road then it's no longer only your home - it is a shared home. In some respects it is easier for 2/3/4 people to come together and buy a property on that basis rathar than the original owner selling shares - why? because the original owner may have difficultly accepting it is no longer only his home!!

sanazir - you would have to de-personalise and clear out all your possessions and make room for other co-owners becuase they will not want to come and find the wardrobe full of your belongings etc

The potential problems could be endless - Mrs ???? will come with all her children and they will leave the place in a complete mess, break the DVD player, leave the oven/fridge in a mess - of course they will deny it was them and say it was like that when they got there .........

With promoted schemes (just like timeshare) this is where the management company steps in and clean and replace all damaged items etc - but that is also where they make their money.

The schemes that were being promoted were being heavily promoted to golfers and included certain golf packages - it was based on research that golfers just wanted to come and play golf for no more than a few weeks a year and did not want the hassle of total ownership. Business failed!!!!

sanazir - have you thought this through and are you willing to accept the above and more?

Would anyone be interested in buying a % of sanazir's property? why or why not?

I agree with Faro. Anything related to rights, ownership rights in this case, should NOT be taken lightly. ( I ommitted NOT in my last entry :))

Faro: These schemes might be a good line of business for estate agents or property managers and owners could sign a policy for use and maintenance that the agent will verify after every use. No big deal in my opinion. Clearity at the start and that´s it.

Maria - Then the management costs become too high.

Property Revolution and The Fractional Group failed and they thought the golf angle would really help sell. They gave it a real go.

At the time they thought it would be a great way to shift all the unsold units on the many half completed golf developments.

But if I recall the %ages were way overpriced - possibly due to eac % being loaded with commissions etc.

I used to bump into these hot air balloon types (estate agents talking up the market) telling me how popular their schemes were etc and then I would say so how many units have you sold and they would say NONE but lot's of pipeline business - contracts pending etc blah blah

But I would be interested to hear if people in general would be interested in such schemes. It's true it could be promoted on certain upmarket developments where there are still many unsold units.

I could easiy draft all the agreements but for what purpose? 

Faro, I for one would certainly NOT be interested in this type of ownership....for all the reasons you mentioned, particularly the fact that I like to be able to leave my own place in a (slight!) mess if I want to without worrying that anyone else is going to have to tidy up after me...and the same would apply to having to tidy up someone else's belongings when I got back!  There's more than just the financial element to consider, isn't there? And in many ways the financial element is of a lesser importance....to me anyway.

One of the best ways of keeping your property, Sanazir, would be to let it on a long term basis, but I believe you are already trying to do this?

I'm the same. I even hate the cleaner moving my things!

One comment I would make about most Spanish properties (excl large villas) is they lack decent wardrobe, cupboard and storage space.

Hi all. Thank you very much for the useful comments. Yes I am looking for long terms rentals. Faro you have raised some interesting issues and Mariacastro thank you for providing the legal angle. I can totally understand that co ownership will not appeal to everybody but for some of us the option is bw default and risk of loosing the property or go into a partnership. Here is what I am offering just in case somebody does get interested.

The current mortgage on the property is 150,000. The apartment is in Vera Al Andalussa Thalassa which is a high quality development. Its a gated community with full securtiy day and night. The community areas are always in perfect condition.  It has large balconys both sides and also has wheel chair access and we are very lucky to have an excellent community and leadership. It has two outdoor and one all weather swimming pools and sauna and gym.  In return for 70,0000 euro investment you get the following

1. The property makes a small profit of around 3,000 per year. I know its small but it is good pocket money

2. The property is full furnished with the usual stuff (including very decent size wardrobe in each room infact bigger than one we have here in the UK ! ) plus broadbankd interent and Sky Satellite system, 36" LCD TV and DVD player but game consoles

3. I don't keep any personal belongings there as I only use it for a week or so per year so my partener will get almost exclusive use. Best to avoid July Aug as its a high renting season. I don't personally ever go in July Aug as its too hot for me. I prefer April May and Oct.

4. My property manager lives across. The property is kept totally spik and span. She will clean and laundary everything for a very reasoanl price i.e. Euro 30. I only pay around 100 euros for key holding

5. Community charges are around Euro 100 per month.

I  still can't find a proper place to advertize but will use the useful info on this forum. Thank you again for the comments. Much appreciated.

Kind Regards

Sanazir

In 1984 we bought our first Spanish property on he Costa del Sol on a co-ownership basis. The 5 owners did not know each other, it was all arranged by a German agent. Aghhh....I hear people say. Well at the time we had 2 small kids, couldn't afford to buy outright ourselves but wanted a familiar place to go each year and leave stuff between visits. It worked perfectly, all bills were split 5 ways, each year one person took control of finances etc (like a mini urbanization with an urbanization) and there was an annual rota for use (2 weeks x 5 times a year and 2 weeks pa for maintenance) which people could negotiate swaps extended stays etc. . So for example we were the only ones with young children and would swap our out of season weeks to get an extended stay for the school hols.The undertairs cupboard housed each owners boxes of personal stuff, including half finsihed bottles of wine, not that we left any of them! Of course it helped that we were all reasonable intelligent people who wanted the same things out of the arrangement, ie a well maintained pleasant place for us and our families to holiday. I accept we were probably lucky and this could have  been a nightmare but our experience was it enabled us to do something we couldn't have done alone at that time, it even survived the death of one owner whose 3 children inherited their share. The problems that did arise were few and relativley trivial.

So, I'm guessing you eventually sold your share of the place, Poppyseed.  How did this work out?  Was the whole place sold at once or did you manage to sell your share on its own? 

We were all ready to move on and sold it as a whole in 2002. The original agreement said if anyone wanted to sell their share the other owners had to have the first refusal.