If you are moving to Spain and hoping to find an agent you can trust... Won't name any names 'just' now but feel free to ask. I have never experienced such underhand business and corrupt methods they should wear masks and carry swag bags. Have you ever heard of a company keeping 6000 euros as commision for a sale that never happened?

My advise...don't pay anything until you are sure...don't be talked into paying more....unless you are sure...speak to the owner of the house...ask to see their contract....you may be suprised to find that they differ in price by 40,000 euros!!!! And you can bet that that will be the amount of 'black money' you will be asked to pay.

Rest assured the extra 10% will not be passed to the seller it will sit in the agents bank and should 'you' decide to pull out for whatever reason you won't get it back and the vendor will have never seen it.

They give Brits a bad name.:curse:

Estate Agents Rock!

Welcome to Spain and its Spanish practices!

Without names, whats the story then?

wasn't sure if names could be given hence no name new to this....not sunshineproperty by the way.

should be tied to a rock and thrown from a cliff more like. sure some will act in a legal manner but the others....come on

only fair to warn people of 'spanish practices' shocking when it's the spanish they are ripping off in their own country.

Heh heh .... I know it isn't, but its still a good lesson to people if you can tell what happened .... might help someone in the future, you never know

ok.....can you at least give us the basic outline of the story?

We need more of them here IMO!

Well the credit crunch in UK is getting rid of a few of them.

We could do with an honest system where people advertise their own property; cutting out the leeches who take exorbitant amounts of money for little work. Sometimes just for adding a few pictures to a website or a newspaper. No actual physical work involved in marketing, other than driving people (who ask specifically) to view the property.

And one where "homes" instead of "investments" are what is sold.

OK so all homes are investments in peoples' futures, but with so many agents touting the investment line, people have lost sight of the fact that we are talking about people's lives here. There are some who just want to live their lives with as little hassle as possible, in a sunny and friendly country, not having to worry about the fact that it cost them 40,000 extra euros (in our case, as we recently found out from an insider at INLAND ANDALUCIA) to buy a house that the ESTATE AGENT got for 105,000. Nothing we can do about it when it's bought, and we thought it was a good buy at the time, but when you come to realise just HOW MUCH these leeches are making out of HONEST people who have worked (a concept that many if not most estate agents would simply not understand) all their lives for their dream, it makes you very angry.

So when I see ANYONE saying that these people are good down-to-earth, honest working folk it makes me want to grab them by the throat and shake some sense into them.

If you need a quick sale, don't go to an agent, sell it yourself. If you are asking for 200,000 then the agent will sell it for 240,000(ish) - A prospective buyer will see two houses exactly the same and go for the 200,000 - a saving to them of 40,000 - what the agent would have taken for doing nothing. It is possible to find (even in this forum) people who are skilled in the house buying/selling system in Spain. Go to them and ask for help. Do not set foot inside an estate agents shopfront.

No estate agents were killed in the making of this posting, although every single one can consider themselves maligned and despised from it.

QUESTION:
How many estate agents does it take to change a light bulb?

One. But he will insist that there is a team of 20 people behind the scenes working very hard to ensure that the event is known to the entire population, the changeover goes smoothly and the new bulb settles in to it's fitting straight away. And of course you will have to pay for the privilege.