grahunt

As far as I understand it the certification of first habitation is used just for getting amenities installed, electric for example. We had a client recently who through an oversight didn't pay his electric bill and was cut off. The worst thing was they took out his meter meaning he needed the certificate of first habitation to get it put back in but the council were not giving the certificates on non urban land so he had to spend six months with a lawyer trying to get his property back on the grid and as usual in Spain it was put back on because a friend of a friend knew someone at Iberdrola.
A good lawyer should be able o sort your ase though I would have thought as pre dating the law, especially by 125 years :-), should hold water. The councils really want you to update the details because then they can charge more of course for the real size and value of the house. Most councils rejigged the catastral values on properties last year as they hadnt been touched for over a decade.

missile

You will need the habitation certificate if and when you sell your property .... unless the buyer is an naive brit.

grahunt

Very true but not many people ask for it if the property already has electric and water because (in theory) it had to have the cedula in order to get them. Nothing to do with naive Brits, that is among all buyers.

Lospacoshombre

Thanks to you all.

Hbg thanks for your insight and Grahunt I used your advice and tried to broker a deal with it but to no avail, they are sticking to their guns.

Fiona I agree with you, buyers market, lets wait and see! If the seller reads the Telegraph or Daily mail, she will be back on the phone in no time!

regards
Al

tommy.irene

Lots of apartments now going cheap as owners lose income..... British demand for apartments to be reduced by 30%
Published April 30, 2012 by englishradiocanaries

The supply of apartments to British tourists is becoming less profitable for the major tour operators in the British tourism market.

The low profit margins have forced operators to consider reducing non-hotel accommodation by around 30% for next winters season.

The major British tour operators plan to terminate their contracts with many of the non-hotel accommodation suppliers next winter. The main reason for this expected cut in the bookings of apartment accommodation is in the shrinking profit margin generated by the apartments for the large operators such as Thomas Cook and Tui.

Operators claim that say that “apartments that are rented for between €25 and €30 only generate a commission of $3 to $5, even less when you take into consideration the development of the brochuresm commissions for the travel agents, etc…”.

One owner selling at 120,000euro now looking 78,000 euro..

chrisjolly

Interesting analysis of the current situation but I still think that if you buy now you will lose money over the next few years if buying is an investment. You can buy a house with the wrongly declared area and change it when you want or never. Its a bit of a long drawn out process but it is possible> I changed the escritura on a friends village house, size 90 sm but actaully 140 sm and it took just over a year. There were visits to the Town Hall, Gestoria and Architect. It was 2000 euros total.
It is such a shame when you visit peoples properties because they we once someones dream of a sunny life in Spain and now sadly a nightmare.
Good luck and dont worry about the paperwork too much..we Brits are a bit paranoid about getting it right when a few years ago you could buy a house in a bar with a serviette as your Bill of Sale..

stuboy

Tommy, would you reccommend buying in the Canaries at the moment?

tommy.irene

Stuboy .. i would wait and see what happens to the EURO.. But the prices are coming down here if you want to buy,, they could get lower..

agoreira

And lots of Brits that weren't paranoid about getting it right....got it wrong! Now stuck with a property they can't sell, effectively worthless.

stuboy

Thanks Tommy I'll keep my eye on the situation, hoping to visit there in September maybe then we will have a clearer picture.

avocados

I'm not Tommy, but I do live here and am closely connected with the local market.

Yes, buying in the Canaries is an excellent idea at the moment, provided you
know what price to pay.

In the province of Las Palmas, median average prices in Gran Canaria are still dropping but prices in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are increasing after flatlining for several months.

People need to understand that exchange rates mean absolutely nothing to the vast majority of Spanish. they don't care if dollar, sterling or anything else goes up or down.

There are very distinct markets. It was possible to buy the bottom in 2010, it's possible to buy it now and it's possible to buy the bottom in 2015. Good properties in good locations are selling like hot cakes at the moment. We even had a Spanish couple knock on our door asking if our house was for sale (we had only recently bought it!). There is very little good stock left, so mostly if you haven't bought already, you've missed the boat and will have to lower your standards and settle fot he "bad" and the "ugly".

Find the peak valor tasacion price.
If good property and good location expect a discount of 40%.
If good proeprty and bad location expect 60% discount.
If bad property in bad location expect 80% discount.
(too time consuming to explain what's good and bad, but it's obvious with experience).

Aim for 2001 prices for good stock.
Aim for 1992 prices for bad stock (banesto was selling flats a couple of months ago at these prices).
The interesting point is that you can achieve the correct price right now, no need to wait for the "averages" to catch up.

It took us 2 years and a lot of work to get what we wanted at the right price. But, we succeeded!!

chrisjolly

Everything can be sorted with time and a good gestoria...find me someone who cannot sell at the right price regardless of paperwork! Its all possible..None of the paperwork in Spain is correct as its all under declared anyway.

agoreira

I love it, someone that can sort out the thousands of illegal houses at a stroke. You're wasted here, you could be making a mint, all these people that thought they were stuck with an illegal house only need to contact you.

Lospacoshombre

Thank you for more interesting comments!

Just an update, as expected the seller has come back to me and said, Ok I will knock off the 4k estimated fees for legalisation from the asking price . So now we are arranging the contract to say I will pay 10% and when the correct certs are received from the town hall we will complete, apparently taking 28 days.

Any thoughts? The agent who is a nuisance, just wants us to buy it and legalise it afterwards at our leisure, but after reading this forum for years that seems like insanity!

Does anyone know if a bank would lend on house in this predicament, ie the size on escritura is incorrect and the pool area and garages not even on it (big area).

I do not need a mortgage but they want to continue marketing the house, so I am assessing the possibility of a new purchaser being able to buy the house.

Regards

Al

Lynn R

I very much doubt it. When I was looking for a house (9 years ago, well before the recession) and would be buying with a small mortgage from a Spanish bank, the property finding firm who helped us would not show us anything where the paperwork was not in order as they said the bank wouldn't lend on such a property.