Originally Posted by SmartiesUK

I have been offered the mortgage already, applied about 2 weeks ago and had the official thumbs up already!

Originally Posted by Beachcomber

Ninety per cent of Spanish lawyers are either corrupt or incompetent and the other ten per cent are likely to view property conveyancing as not being worthy of their talents.

Originally Posted by jdr

Handy links, but that advertising bar going through the text is annoying in the second link. ;-(

Originally Posted by MnM

Sorry about that jdr, I didn't know. I have pop-ups disabled on my browser so I wasn't aware.

Originally Posted by keithwalters

Mitzipurr, you mentioned "licence to build". Smarties question was about the LFO, not the licencia de obras.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the villas in Chiclana were lacking the licencia de obras and are therefore naturally illegal.

JDR - I´ve never heard about the LFOs being given by default. That´s a new one on me.

As for the solicitor, yes of course get an independant one. But (without checking all the way back through the thread) I don´t think Smarties has told us that his solicitor ISNT independant.

What alarms me the most is the fact that Smarties gives us a scenario in which there is nothing untoward (although, granted, we don´t know the whole story), receives "advice" which causes him to panic and consider backing out of the purchase of his dream villa, and I feel like I am the only one trying to encourage rational thinking!


Here I tell a little story:

Mr Developer decides to build an urbanisation of villas. He gets his licencia de obras and begins work. When he finishes building the villas he puts in his application to the town hall for the LFO, knowing full well that this will take a few weeks/months to be approved as this is normal in Spain.

The Local Authority are in the process of issuing the LFOs to Mr Developer´s villas when along comes Mr Smarties. Mr Smarties falls in love with one of the villas and pays a deposit to reserve one. Mr Smarties then goes onto the BE forum and receives lots of well meaning advice about breaking the law, fires burning down his neighbours houses, not getting connected to electricy and water, & not being able to sell his house in the future.

Naturally Mr Smarties begins to panic and wonder what the hell he has got himself into, so instead of just waiting for the LFO he backs out of the deal and loses his 3000 euros deposit.

Mr Developer can´t quite understand what caused Mr Smarties to pull out as he knows he has built some perfectly legal villas, but he thinks oh well, I got 3000 euros out of it.

Two weeks later Mr Developer sells Mr Smarties´ villa to someone else and the local authority issue the LFO pretty much when expected.

Meanwhile, Mr Smarties is back at square one and the members of BE forum are feeling smug that their "advice" saved Mr Smarties from making some horrible mistake.



So what is the moral of the story? Don´t overreact. Don´t assume that every villa built in Spain is illegally built. If you have any doubts about the the LFO being issued, then just wait until it is before you complete.

DO NOT pull out of the sale and lose 3000 euros because of some duff scaremonging advice you read on a forum.


If Smarties comes back with some genuinely concerning information (eg, no licencia de obras, people on the urbi have been waiting 12 months for LFOs, etc) then I will happily eat my words. But at this moment in time I see nothing but total normality.

Now I´d like to see a little bit of RATIONAL support and advice for someone who is about to give up on their dream because of what you have written.

Originally Posted by Lionda

There you go! Nothing to worry about - you will be there before us

Originally Posted by SmartiesUK

I have been offered the mortgage already, applied about 2 weeks ago and had the official thumbs up already!