ready to complete but exchange rate so bad!!

Forgive me if I'm posting this in the wrong place....

We have been informed that our property is ready (woo hoo!!!) and that we now need to make arrangements to fly to Spain to complete the purchase. 

Our concern is the rate of exchange at the moment - completion couldn't have come at a worse time for us, financially.  We have been watching the exchange rate extremley closely for the last month or so and were worried when it was 1.34 euros to the £, but at it's lowest today it was 1.27!!!  We bought 100,000 euros at 1.30 last week (absolutley gutting!) but we have to buy another 107,000 euros in order to pay for the property. 

Anyway, what I'm wondering is, has anybody here delayed their completion for the sake of the exchange rate, in the hope it will rise, even a fraction.  At 1.30 euros to the £, we stand to lose about £10,000 compared to the excahnge rate we got when we put our deposit down.  Is it even posiible to delay completion??  I'm not talking years, we're moving out in September so ideally, we'd like to complete in July.  We realise that the exchange rate may not change in our favour even by this time, but it's a risk we're willing to take at the moment, after speaking to Moneycorp, it seems their opinion is that it can't get that much worse than it is now anyway.

Any advice is appreciated!! (hope my ramble of figures makes sense!! I've confused myself )

Terrible, isnt it?  I'm in the same boat but not completing until May.  Unfortunately, the exchange rate is forecast to get worse.  If I'd completed last week I'd have saved over 3 thousand pounds.  God only knows what the rate will be in May.  If I could forecast the forward exchange rates I'd be rich and wouldn't have to worry about things like this.

Trouble is, do you complete now at a low rate or wait a while hoping it goes up?  More trouble, what if it goes down?  In that case you'd lose even more.  Sorry I'm not much help but I am in the same quandary.   I am not a financial expert but I have been reading the papers and they forecast it to go even lower so, for what my penny is worth, complete now.  Then again, if the people who write these articles could forecast the markets they wouldn't be wasting their time writing newspaper columns, would they?

It really is awful, and FX is the main topic of conversation in our house at the moment.  Interesting that you say it's forecast to get worse,  when we deposited our money with moneycorp last week they told us that the exchange rate would be up and down for the first 3 days of this week and that any lows over these days would probably be as bad as it would get.  They encouraged us to exchange at 1.30 and at the moment I'm glad we did, but who knows whether that was the right decision?  Foreign exchange is so unpredictable, and playing a waiting game in the hope things will get better is stressing me out like mad! I'm also annoyed because a few weeks ago it was 1.35 and we stupidly decided to wait as we thought that was a bad rate!!  We were going over to Spain mortgage free with a tidy sum to live off for a while, but at this rate we'll be needing to take a small mortage to make sure we've got enough to tide us over before we find work (we've planned for 2 years living money) Then, we have to account for paying our mortage on a monthly basis!

Up until now, my husband has dealt with all of our finances while I've been quite happy to bury my head in the sand and buy new shoes.  I'm very quickly learning that the Euro is NOT monopoly money!

Hi my name is David and I'm also in the process of completing in the end of August. I have being working with a couple of Foreign Exchange Company’s. I have being told that the best thing to do is open accounts with a couple of Fx company’s and try and get the best rate by doing comparisons with them.

 The company's I have opened an account with are Money Corp, Hifx and Excel Currencies. I have not being overly impressed with the first two but still not bad. However I was recommended by a friend to give Excel Currencies a call as they say they give a guaranteed unbeatable exchange rate.  Which I taught was a bit too good to be true. but when I got an account opened with them, I don’t know if I got lucky with the broker I got but he was extremely helpful and he just gave it to me straight he informed me all the way back in November that I should try and get as much paid for as soon as possible as the rates were on the way down. Didn’t believe him at first but I obviously found out the hard way like so many others that he was right. My advice for you is to open accounts with a couple of Fx Brokers to make sure that when you do have to bring money over you will get the best rate.

If you like I will give you the name and number of the broker Im working with from Excel Currencies...

Did you find out if you can delay the completion date ??????

Absolutely no guarantee on these figs, but an FX dealer I know at a major UK bank was predicting the euro to bottom out at 1.25, before crawling back to around 1.31-1.32 over the summer (with a possible short term peak at 1.35), afraid he was then expecting rate to fall back again towards end of yr.

In the current volatile market place, I think it is hard for anyone to be sure, and unfortunaltly sterling is no longer regarded as one of the worlds leading currency's. 

John

Hi there,

Snap, we are in exactly the same position. We need to f ind another £10,000, and its not going to be easy. I have heard that the rate is going to go down even further which gets even worse for us all in this position. Possible as low as 1.10, so you did well to get some at 1.30.

it seems that all properties are sold on the basis that the exchange rate is 1.45. However are they going to sell any in the future, i really dont know. What are these companies telling unwitting victims who come out to Spain on viewing tours?

As for delaying signing the contract, well this is not good either. Our developers are going to charge us interest because we have not been able to complete. Through no fault of our own. We are yet to find out how much this is going to be.

We have been given false promises for the last two years and its cost us an absolute fortune so far.

Good luck

Hi Jenna

Bob's right, it is hard to know what to do for the best. If only we all had a crystal ball eh??

If you do delay completion I would think that you would have to have a really good reason to give them. Also as Bob says, who knows which way it will go??? no one can give you advice. But when we completed it was lower than when we put deposit down and is annoying, I know, but a year on and we are so happy with our place it's all worth it in the end. Just ride the storm  think, that's all we can do really. Like having a baby really, all the pain and as soon as you see what you have it is soon forgotten  .

A Cardiff girl too I see, are you moving over permanently? Wish we were.  One day  .

Thanks for all your replies,  I don't think we're going to try and delay completion, but we're still watching the exchange rate closely and we've sought come advice and the opinion seems to be that it could get worse so it looks like we'll have to cut out losses and go ahead soon.  We're signed up with moneycorp and Currencies direct and so far moneycorp have been the better of the two but I'm going to give Excel currencies a call too (thanks for that David!)

Candyfloss - yep a fellow Cardiff girl here, we are moving over to Spain permanently, we've sold our house here and currently staying with the Mother-In-Law while we wait for the big move . Not as bad as it sounds, we have a self-contained flat in her big house and not paying anything to stay there so at least we can save a bit of our wages to compensate for the bad exchange rate. It's just a little bit cramped with me, hubby and a baby in a one-bedroom flat!

We're trying to look on the bright side though, the move is costing us more than anticipated but we are sure it'll all be worth it in the end!!

For all Buyers with sterling funds to pay for their properties may I suggest a different method to consider ....

Apply for a Spanish Mortgage and at the same time transfer your funds to a Sterling Account with the bank.

They can see that you have the funds available and therefore have credibility, the mortgage agreement is taken out in euros so you don`t have the drastic exchange differential and your maximum exposure to the CURRENT exchange rate is the monthly mortgage payment with the need to transfer from sterling to euros on a monthly basis...

Your sterling can also be put in a high interest account that will offset some of the interest charged on the mortgage.

Ensure you get a mortgage that allows you to overpay without any fees and WHEN (this is the tricky bit) the exchange rates become more favourable you can pay off a significant amount of the euro mortgage....

I am sure there are some negatives (fees/taxes) but you are not exposed to a 12% variance that we see with the rates as they are today or as they will probably stand in the next few months..

Hope it helps

Anthony

hi all

we read somewhere (can't find thread now) that it is possible to take over the developers mortgage on the property and continue paying this. Does anyone have info on how this works and would you recommend it.

cheers

woody

Hello Woody.

This is the normal proceedure with all off plan properties. How it works. The buyer puts down a reserve and then makes this up to 10%  Then a certain amount of the price is paid off in stages. Depends on the promotion. Usually the buyer will have paid of half of the selling price. The promoter then has a mortgage in place with a bank of his choice and you take this on. You can also shop around for a better deal from any other bank. If the promoter tells you that there is a penalty if you do this, it is illegal. You have the right to choose the mortgage you wish to have. Is this clear enough? Regards Myra from www.costaadvicebureau.com

There are many banks here in spain who will talk to you about the present rates. Most banks give tourist rates but you can push for commercial rate exchange. It is obviously best to have your mortgage in euros

Hola grandslam

Have you joined your development forum yet as there maybe many there chatting & you could also ask in there. Just click blue link & join free. Good luck. It's a trying time with rate being as it is, I realise.

Al Andalus Veranda Agua

It surprises me that the builders (I am assuming it is the same builder that built the other Al Andalus complexes) have got their act together quick enough to provide the units before time. I know some of the buyers on Thalassa had to wait for overdue completion dates and up until recently, I believe it was still a building site even though people have been resident for 12 months or so.

Mark

We used Currency  Solutions and they offered us the best possible rate in November. - my husband phoned all the companies before he said right Go.   If we had exchanged  in the afternoon we would not have had enough money in our account - that's how tight we were .     They have an arrangement with the BOS and the money is deposited with the bank in their account overnight   - they get the interest from the bank and the customer gets the higher exchange rate.  We were very happy with them.  I  heard about them from these boards.   They deposited it in the bank in batches of 50,00 ( or was it 49999) to avoid tax - our bank manager was well impressd.

The next time my husband used Currencies Direct ( he thought he had used the same company as we too have opened many accounts with different companies ) but I don't think they have the same arrangement but I could be wrong as they were not up front about it .

Hi, I'm new.

I've been reading with interest some of the posts on here but there has not been much said about the exchage rate for a while so I thought I'd put my situation to you. I bought an off plan property 5 years ago on the Costa Blanca, a two bed, two bathroom, ground floor apartment on a small complex. Everything went to plan, very happy with the finished product and I've have nothing but praise for the developer.

Two and a half years ago when things were still riding high and I was getting nearly 1.50 euro's to the pound, I decided to put a deposit down on another off plan development,  opposite the one I have now (same developers). Completion is due end of the year and the complex is looking fantastic. Problem is it's now going to cost me an extra 25-30K sterling.

I know you can't predict future currency movements but there has been so much in the press recently about how in the next few months the euro is going to take a big fall. What do you think? I mean these so called experts have been saying this for the last six months and it hasn't happened yet.

So, what shall I do? Try and get out of my contract (completion should have been December 08)? Ask for a reduction? Or bite the bullet and hope the pound picks up?

Thing is, if I go for a euro mortgage and the pound recovers, I'm laughing. But what if it doesn't, what if it gets worse?

Sorry for all the questions but it's doing my head in.