Yes, thats right, I find that the real embarassing behaviour starts when there is money involved, then the nice friendly locals that everyone thinks are the salt of the earth, really show their true colours.

I haven't found the "nice friendly locals" to be any worse in that respect than some British expats - even in my area where there aren't a huge number of British people living, examples abound of tradesmen charging extortionate amounts compared to local workers, people borrowing money and not paying it back, people volunteering to look after properties for holiday home owners and then renting them out on the QT - just yesterday a British guy who owns a house round the corner from mine turned up looking for his tenants, a British couple, who have done a moonlight having not paid their rent for the last 2 months. Turned out she has been reported to the authorities for claiming disability benefit which she would not have been eligible for had they known she wasn't UK resident. Funny that, as she had been capable of working cash in hand as a cleaner for some local villa owners!

Thats a point I am making that you are looking from the outside in you dont see what goes on between Spanish families, business partners and such, and how the Spanish shaft each other too.

I didn't say that the Spaniards were any better, just that they weren't any worse!

Of course there are dishonest and unscrupulous people amongst all nationalities.

What amazes me, though, are the British expats saying they wouldn't trust a Spanish person to work on their house/service their car/look after their holiday home in their absence, because "they are out to rip us off because we are foreigners". They are so paranoid about being cheated by a Spaniard that they forget to look over their shoulder for their fellow Brit who is only too happy to do the same!

Been there....got the T-shirt, but I still love em!

Interesting point...

Karma for that!

We have had work done by several Spaniards and never had a problem, we always found it's the re-invented Brits that rip you off.
For the last four years we have taken our car to be serviced at a Spanish garage, they are always very helpful and often do little jobs for no charge.

To be honest we would not know where to find a Brit to do any of these things for us. However we have never had a problem with any of our local tradesmen and would not hesitate to recommend them to others. We asked our neighbours for recommendations and we think that this worked well, also all of the workers that we used live within our smal town so if they ripped anyone off they would soon be out of work.

One thing that really amazed us was when we were going to Huescar, Granada for a holiday and took the car down to the Ford garage for a service and the mechanic told us that he would not do it until we came back because we did not have enough mileage on the clock. Needless to say that we always take our car to him because of his honesty and he always seems to charge a fair price.

Rosemary

There are plenty of ripp off Spanish builders all over Spain,just as there are plenty in the UK who are ripping off the -British, you see tv programmes all the time showing this on UK TV.

I have had experience of bad workmanship done on my flat in Coruna, in fact bad is not the word for it,
and belive me it is a lot easier when trying to sort it if both parties speak the same language,
so that could be a reason why the Brits living in Spain choose British builders etc, they think that there will be less likely to be misunderstandings at the begining, and easier to solve if things do go wrong.

the oh has just been through the agonies of matriculating her uk car, the Spanish garage she used, on recommendation from Spanish friend, is run by 2 guys who speak really good English, their premises are spotless, all painted floors and walls, nothing left out of place, no grease or dirt anywhere. everything is so so professional. they even negotiated on our behalf with the ITV engineer as to what work he wanted done to get a pass.
they make the average garage back in the uk look like an embarrassing grease ball.
even our uk local MOT station is dirty and greasy, poor toilets, and they don't work on cars only test them.

Everyone knows this unless they are completely gullible, just as many if not more than in the UK, recommendation is the only way to find a good builder...never ever out of a trade book.

Alway black and white on here, been reading the same ole for years The spanish are like any other nationalities, good, average and bad! Had excellent service and some crap too. A spanish couple who are friends got ripped off bigtime when they paid over 4000 for a new CH boiler which didn't do the job. Another spanish neighbour had a wood floor laid by a spanish mate..finally had to be pulled up and he got an English guy in to do it right.

I would take a guess that some of you on here who participate in this rubbish are actually working on the black in Spain

I am glad someone else has noticed the Black and white opinions.

I always feel as though the Spanish are seen as anfairground attraction in themselves,if you know what I mean.

Just because the neighbours have all been pleasant and helpful does not mean that whole population are the same.

There are all sorts just like in the UK, and for someone to say that the love a nation of people seems strange to me.

I love some Brits/Spanish, tolerate some, and cant stand others.

I've been saying that ever since I set foot in this hot country some years ago, I don't find Spanish people any different from my fellow Brits, the good, the bad and the plain ugly.

Every time I hear people say that Spanish people are more trustworthy, more honest, more friendly, more of anything, I have to laugh. They're not, they're just the same as the Brits back home, or over here with us in the sun.

They are people. What should we expect.

Havingg said that, I find Spanish people are more prone to smile and say hello.