Reassurance needed

OP- Original Poster Stokey. My sympathies are entirely with you and your situation. Despite what most professionals will tell you Spain has, always has been and will probably continue to be the 'wild west' in terms of laws, enforcement, procedures and rules compliance. Tis just the way it is.

Take a punt on Spain and it may be successful. I have been lucky. But its a gamble sometimes you win often you lose.

"Punt" & "gamble" are probably fairly appropriate terms to use in conjunction with discussions about most Spanish property - with a few notable exceptions such as Madrid & Barcelona of course. Sadly, too many "place in the sun" type programs and the dreamers who feature on them continue to use the term "investment" instead.

Stokey, my understanding of the EU is that there are EU laws that must be adopted by all members, but that doesn't stop individual members also having some individual laws as well. I don't know about the 10 year building guarantees issued by the NHBC in the UK, but if it's under UK rather than EU law, there's no need for any other EU country to adopt the same law.