My daughter is buying a house for the first time in the UK, the legal fees are estimated at £2600.

A friend of mine and I bought a house each in Spain, the legal fees for both of these was 300euros, what does that tell you. One thing is we met our Spanish Lawyer my daughter will never meet hers!!

I did encounter water and electrical problems which I sorted myself.

I never heard the question asked or any blame for water or electric problems, being the fault of a British Lawyer, for buying in the UK, it is something you have to sort yourself.

A Spanish lawyer normally charges between 1% and 1,5% of the purchase price and part of his job is to ensure there are no debts or charges outstanding which includes water and electricity as these are debts on the property not the physical person.

I know nothing of the property purchasing law in the UK but presumably debts of this kind remain with the seller and are not passed on to the new purchaser.

So in Spain who is responsible for contracts to the electrical and water company, forget any debt that exists,is it, the seller,the buyer,the lawyer or the builder and it is not a trick question.

Can I just comment? You say "legal fees" are estimated at £2600. Are these ALL the costs associated with your daughter's purchase including Stamp Duty and being channelled through your solicitor's office ? In other words, are you certain that the solicitor is asking for £2600 ? Think Stamp Duty is charged at 1% in UK for property purchase over £60k and up to £250k.

Well sorry to tell you this nige, she is buying in a so called deprived area exempt of stamp duty, but for calcs the house is 90k. So put the stamp on for reality stakes if you wish.

When I was orginally going to buy in UK, my lawyer fees were approx £340. My fee for the Spanish lawyer was 1% of the purchase fee. They gave me a breakdown on what their services consisted of. In UK the seller is responsible of all their debts with regard to property etc in Spain the debts remain with the property and taken on by new owner. My lawyer checked that out and it was included in the fee. The OP should check with what his lawyer's fee included if he got a breakdown of it and if it is included checking debts on the property he should be able to do something about it.

Spaniards do not generally use lawyers to handle property transactions and do everything themselves with the help of a gestor to fill in the forms and pay the taxes.

Non-Spanish speaking foreigners obviously need someone to help them and being accustomed to using a lawyer in their home country they allow themselves to be persuaded that it is the thing to do here so this is where some smart-suited greaseball who has been to college and obtained a law degree and has a smattering of English jumps on the bandwagon and promises to do everything for them. In actual fact he does as little as possible for as much as he can screw out of the client then denies all responsibility when it all goes wrong.

As I said before, it is the lawyer's responsibility to ensure there are no debts on the property and this is what bluebell's lawyer failed to do. We are not talking about changing over contracts and setting up standing orders but failing to ensure the the property was being sold free of debts, charges and encumbrances. The fact that the property had an illegal water supply would have come to light if these checks had been made.

It is not unreasonable to expect that the lawyer would also take care of the changing over of utility contracts and setting up of standing orders etc or at least make it clear whether or not he intended to do so but as they frequently seem to lack the ability to spot even the simplest flaw in the legal status of a property perhaps it is not so reasonable after all.

Talking of Gestors anyone recommend one in the Marbella area that speaks English as my Spanish is not upto speed in some areas.

Hi Mercedes
I have found out to my cost that you cannot do anything about a mistake a Spanish lawyer makes. You just have to take on the chin

I've read some of your post Mitipurr and know you have had a rough time. I suppose the only thing you can do is name and shame and make sure no one else cops it. I like the idea of sitting in the reception with sandwiches and a flask and telling all new clients to BEWARE.

I have looked again at ways to get out of paying this water bill, but we are not in Spain yet full time, so it's obviously difficult for us. Luckily the bill was not as bad as expected so we are paying it, because at end of day we can't live in the house without it !

For the record, the main reason we used a solicitor at all was to check for any debts or hidden charges. He has done little else & hasn't even done the main thing we wanted. I find it hard to believe that lawyers in Spain can get away with anything, whereas in UK they would be banned from practising.

I agree totally with your comments Beachcomber. Mitzipurr it sounds like you've had a lot of problems yourself. I hope everything is now going OK for you.

Just read in the paper today that the Land Grab in Costa Blanca area has been deemed illegal by the European Commission and that there should be compensation paid to people who have had their land grabbed. So there is hope yet of taking these Spanish Lawyers to task. Maybe those who have had problems need to see if they can deal with it through the EU Commission.

You're right Mercedes, the European commission is probably the best way to get something drastic done (like those people in land grab area) .

I must admit I loved your idea of sitting in the solicitor's office with a thermos & sandwiches, Beachcomber suggested going to the office too & creating a fuss. Unfortunately our solicitor is in a building which you can't get into (without stating on the intercom who you are).

My tactic has been to e-mail and phone every day. I know from the sound of the solicitor's voice that it's getting on his nerves !

Wow Mercedes what fantastic news at last some people are getting justice in Spain. What about now we all report all the lawyers who have not done their job properly to the EU Commision and completely bypass normal channels i.e. their trade union! Lets all get together and bombard the eu with our complaints about these wasters.

Can you please post url where you have seen this?

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/global...7/wspain17.xmlArticle in the EXPAT online edition of the Daily Torygraph. Dateline 17th April Valencia.