I know you get good and bad landlords wherever you are, but . . .

After reading a couple of threads about the problems people have had renting.

What experiences do other people have regarding dealings with landlords, estate agents etc ?

I dont know, I've never had a problem. I rented two properties in London, one in Barcelona and 1 on the Costa del sol. I always went through an estate agent, but there is no reason to do that nowadays, up to you.

There are so many empty properties out there that a landlord would be stupid to mistreat a tenant.

If I were to give some advice it would be, never pay more than a 2 week finders fee to the estate agent, and if you leave more than 1 months deposit then make sure you have a legal check-in document/inventory that details the state of the property. However, in much of the Costas you shouldnt have to give more than 1 month of finance.

Thanks for the info,

Has anybody heard of, or had dealings with a company called Sol Mar, they have a house we are interested in, but are asking a months rent as admin fee !!

nightmare landlords..I could write a book on nightmare tenants.

My experience in UK & Spain as a LL is people who pay the least expect the most. Give a tenant the chance to get away with something & sadly he will.

Its so sad, 99% of people are honest, genuine & pay what is due. The 1% remaining are straight trash.

A months rent as an admin fee is normal in Spain, but you can usually negotiate with the landlord and at least get them to pay half of it

Not having a dig at landlords and agree it works both ways !! theres just as many bad tenants out there !!

But, obviousley, with the language differences, different rules and regs etc, looking for advice so as to avoid any pitfalls before signing !!

the very best advice I would giveyou is to make sure you fully understand the contract

if you don't speak very good Spanish, have it independently translated

This is very common, especially with the bigger agents.

I seem to have had my fair share of bad luck with landlords. The first refused to pay for some major plumbing that had broken (we were quoted 11,00€), blaming us when it quite obviously was a long term problem, we had to leave cos we couldnt even empty the sinks, let alone flush the toilet or bath. The second was ok, but wouldnt give our deposit back. The third wasnt paying his mortgage on the property so we were faced with eviction and the forth announced out of the blue that they'd like the house back during the summer months and asked us to leave by the beginning of June - thats still on-going. The contract does state that we can stay here til beginning of October (as long as we pay the bills etc) with no "get out" clauses! The latest is they've suggested we may store our property in one room of the house for the summer, we go back to the UK and come back again at the end of August!!!!!!!!!!!

Jo xxx

My daughter's first Spanish landlady kept the deposit to cover the huge water bill caused by a dripping toilet (ballvalve needed replacing). We reported the problem with the toilet to her on many occasions, both in person at her office (she worked for an estate agency) and by email - took her 6 weeks to send round a plumber! Of course she argued that our daughter took too many showers!

I guess we could have denounced her, had we had the time and not been based in UK, but our gestor said it probably was more trouble than it was worth for 600€

tell them you'll stay in the very expensive hotel down the road, full board at their expense - then they can have the house for August!!!

The bit about them wanting the house back is total rubbish, it's illegal and they have no right of entry. The law is on your side, so just tell them you will leave at the contract end and not before.

You don`t even have to leave at the end of the contract, you can stay for five years if you want. Unless there is a clause (recently added by law) that the owner can terminate the contract if they need the property for themselves and give you adequate notice.
Check your contract.

We've simply said that our contract is til 3rd October and we dont wish to leave before that date - We may if they offer us compensation for breach of contract but we wouldnt return! But it doesnt make life feel very pleasant right now, cos the agent lives two doors away and is very obviously on the side of the owner. But she knows that we know they're trying it on!

Jo xx

Tempting, but what about my doggies? We've said that we'll leave and leave for good if they give us the right amount of compensation!

Jo xxx