Recommended lawyer in Costa Tropical

Given the increasing number of visitors who contact us requesting names of reputable lawyers all over Spain, last year we signed an agreement with the Spanish branch of an international network of lawyers called Eurojuris. According to the terms of this agreement, all lawyer members of Eurojuris are committed to giving prompt, bilingual and highly professional services to the clients we forward on to them, and to charge them highly competitive rates (one of the problems our visitors often face is being overcharged by their legal representative during a property deal). They, importantly, have no contact with the property sellers or agents being used by our visitors, and your interests are the only ones they are interested in serving.

Eurojuris keeps us informed of the progress of all the clients we forward on to them and satisfaction level is 100% as so far all the property buyers forwarded on to them by us have been delighted with the service received. The network is one of Spain's most highly respected associations of solicitors. See below the experience of one satisfied customer:

Dear Madam

Sometime ago I approached Euroresidentes (email: euroresi@euroresidentes.com) seeking the name of a reliable
lawyer that I could use to handle the proposed purchase of a property in the
Almunecar area of Granada province. I was put in touch with Eurojuris Espana
and you kindly directed me to a firm in Almunecar.

I have recently successfully completed the purchase of the said property and
wish to put on record my sincerest thanks for directing me to such a top-class professional firm of lawyers. From the moment I first established contact with the partner in the firm - Irina Sviridovitch - I was extremely impressed with the efficiency with which my enquiries were answered. All emails and phone calls were returned on the same day or the following day. Clear, definitive answers were provided to all matters raised.

The purchase of the property necessitated 4 separate visits over 6 months to Almunecar. During my first visit Ms. Sviridovitch took me through the buying
process and explained in detail, yet in understandable layman's' terms, all
the legal aspects to the process. Fees were agreed at the initial meeting
and these were very reasonable.

For the subsequent three meetings Ms. Sviridovitch facilitated our requests for meetings at particular times and dates. As we were travelling with a three year old and an infant it was sometimes difficult to co-ordinate visits with estate agents to prospective properties but I can say, hand on heart, that we did not encounter any such difficulty in our dealings with our lawyer. Ms. Sviridovitch was extremely flexible in accommodating our requests for meeting.

Apart altogether from the excellent service I refer to above it was only when
we had decided to purchase a particular property that our lawyer proved what an invaluable asset she was to us. It is at this stage when one gets most nervous and in our case we had to contend with a lazy estate agent acting on behalf of the vendor, a vendor which comprised essentially four persons, a bank in a different province which held a mortgage on the property but yet refused to send a representative to the closing of the deal and some very sloppy paperwork prepared by the estate agent. During that last week I feared that the deal would fall through but thanks to the confident stewardship of Ms. Sviridovitch we closed the deal in early February, all the paperwork (notary matters, property registration, tax registration, payment of 'stamp duty', drawing up of wills etc.) has since been finalised and we are now the proud owners of a beautiful property on the Costa Tropical.

One final point I should add. Not being residents of Almunecar we had no idea
where we might buy electrical fittings, furniture and avail of the services of an electrician. Ms. Sviridovitch was extremely helpful in directing us to the appropriate persons and, in the case of the electrician, effectively saved us from nights without electricity and hot water when we last arrived in Almunecar - not a very pleasant prospect with two very young children.

I can highly recommend this firm of lawyers and Ms. Sviridovitch, in particular, and once aging thank you for directing me to this particular firm. I should add that a friend of mine recently acquired a property in Alicante and his experience with his lawyer was the complete opposite to mine. For this reason alone I am grateful for the efficient and professional service supplied to me by Fernandez Cuevas Abogados. I feel sure that, with the kind of quality service offered by this firm, it may confidently be relied on to provide excellent legal services to prospective clients

Kind regards

If anybody needs the service of a solicitor in the Costa Tropical - Granada area, just send us an email to euroresi@euroresidentes.com and we will forward it on to this highly recommended company of lawyers.

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Recommended property surveyor in Almería

Further to our emails below we are in the process of purchasing a property in Canjáyar, Almería, which is in the Sierra Nevada.

I am happy to recommend a qualified surveyor who covers this area. We found him to be very professional, very thorough and helpful. His report on our property was extremely detailed and prepared in lightning quick time. His name is Ian Tupman and he can be contacted at ianctupman@wanadoo.es

Our lawyer is still dealing with our purchase and we will wait until completion before considering a recommendation.

Shared ownership property fraud in Spain

Co-sharing fraud operation discovered.

Spanish police in Malaga have arrested 8 people suspected of leading a real estate fraud network in the Costa del Sol and making profits of over 18 million euros at the expense of British and other European shared property buyers in Spain.

Police spokesmen yesterday said the criminal network was set up in 2000 and operated along the Costa del Sol. Over 300 companies and more than 1,000 individuals participated in the network which has affected more than 15,000 victims. The people arrested yesterday in Fuengirola, Mijas and Coín are suspected of being the leaders.

According to police investigations, the fraud was set up six years ago when a group of people living in the Canary Islands moved to the Costa del Sol and started to develop a network of companies selling participations in shared properties. The group was made up of nationals of the United Kingdom, South Africa, Belgium and Norway, and most of their victims were citizens in the UK and in central European countries.

The network used several different tactics to extract money from their victims. One was to get them to transfer money from their home country to pay the “expenses” related to the purchase of the multi property (legal costs, taxes...). Another was to sell a pretend holiday product to different buyers or to sell the same week at a given property to several people. Once the buyers realised they had fallen victim to some kind of fraud operation, they were referred to a bogus company of solicitors (set up by the criminal network) who got more money out of them by pretending to defend their claims and carry out false legal actions agains the original sellers. Another good reason why property buyers who don't live in Spain should avoid using lawyers recommended by the estate agency selling them the property.

The money extracted from thousands of victims has yet to be discovered by police who believe that most of it has been transferred to accounts in other countries. The investigation continues.

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Buying rural property in Spain

Last week we received the following enquiry from someone buying property in Spain:

Question: We have paid a deposit on an ‘old’ property in Almeria. We later found out that the property has no Escritura and our estate agent and Spanish solicitor have both said this is not a problem – that the Escritura can be applied for and will be issued in our names and a Spanish mortgage granted. English banks will not provide a mortgage based on a newly issued Escritura as they say their policy is to wait two years to guarantee ownership and to ensure the property is not claimed back i.e. by a family member or a neighbour. My concern is not necessarily raising the money or getting a mortgage but the possibility of the property being taken away from us after we’ve paid for it, therefore loosing our money and the property.

Answer: Buying a rural house in Spain is a complicated process which can be full of problems if you do not look into all of them. The title deed (escritura) should be signed at the same time as when all the money is paid. The alternative is to pay first a reservation deposit and sign a private purchase/sale contract with the vendors or with the legal representatives (always get your lawyer to check the documentation presented by them to make sure they have legal rights to represent the real owners of the land and property).

Another very important piece of advice. The present owners of the plot of land where the house is must notify the owners of the land adjacent to the boundaries of your plot before selling to you because they actually have preference of purchase over you. By law the vendors should send formal letters to all of them offering them first refusal of the land and property you are going to buy. If within the legal period established, no (affirmative) reply is received, you are free to buy the land without any risk.

If you don't make sure the above is properly carried out, you could become another innocent victim of what can go terribly wrong when buying rural properties in Spain. Furthermore, if, as is often the case in Spain, you have agreed at the vendor's request to pay some of the purchase price in cash (so that the declared price in the deeds differs from the real rice you have paid), and if the owners of the adjacent land have not been notified and given the time established by Spanish law to answer, then they could take advantage of the lower "declared" price as stated on the title deeds, deposit the same amount with the Spanish courts and take over ownership of your property. You will be paid the money deposited with the courts, but you will have lost the cash payment as well as your new property.

Lawyers in Spain

We receive lots of queries from visitors enquiring about lawyers fees in Spain.

We always recommend use of a lawyer when purchasing property here, but do advise our users to be wary of two things:

Never ever use a lawyer recommended to you by the estate agent that showed you the property you are purchasing. The job of estate agents is to sell property, not to protect your rights as buyers. And they will inevitably recommend a lawyer known and regularly hired by them, who will naturally protect the sale rather than your rights. It is very important to find an independent lawyer.

Lawyers fees. We have heard all sorts of fees charged to buyers who have little idea of average solicitor fees in Spain and so can easily be overcharged. Bear the following facts in mind

Some lawyers charge a percentage of the purchase price as their fee (anything from 1 to 1.5 percent). So, the more expensive your property, the more you have to pay, even though size and price do not necessarily mean more work.

Some lawyers charge another fee on top of the percentage, which they call a "documents fee". We had a message recently from one Euroresidentes user whose lawyers wanted to charge him 1 percent + .75 percent "documentation fee". He was going to be charged a total of over 2500 euros, which was about double the average price for lawyers services in the area of Spain where he was buying his house.

Other lawyers charge an hourly fee, which can range between 100 and 150 euros per hour, depending on the law firm. House transactions do not actually entail much work for a lawyer in Spain. The paperwork is very straightforward and experienced lawyers will need no longer than a few hours to check everything.

If you are getting a mortgage with a Spanish bank, the bank lawyers will usually check the deeds and property register themselves, and a small fee will be included for this in the mortgage set-up costs. This does not mean that you should not hire the services of your own lawyer, but it is something to bear in mind.

We would advise all property buyers in Spain to take the following steps:

• Find a good, independent and recommended local lawyer who has thorough knowledge of the area in which you are purchasing your property. Ask your local consulate - staff there may be able to help. Alternatively send an email to Euroresidentes (euroresi@euroresidentes.com) specifying where you are looking for (or have found) a property to buy, and we will forward the name of a local reputable lawyer experienced in serving the needs of non-Spanish property buyers. We have a long list of lawyers who have been successfully hired by Brits who have purchased real estate in Spain (See this testimony received from a recent satisfied customer: Recommended lawyer in Costa Tropical).
• Once you have found a recommended Spanish lawyer, agree on the fee before you do anything else. If you decide to be charged a fee based on an hourly rate, ask for an estimated number of hours before you agree. If you are lucky to have more than one recommendation of independent lawyers, get two estimates and compare them.
• Don't use a lawyer recommended to you by the property vendor, whether it is a private sale or an estate agent. In both cases the priority of the vendor is to sell as quickly as possible and at the highest price possible. The buyer's interests however are to ensure that this is a legal sale, that the property itself is legal and sellable, the price is fair, the paperwork is correct, the vendor is in a position to sell, legal services are charged according to local rates and, very important, that the property is in no way under threat from local urban policies.

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